There were no trees, only scrub growths and sandy bareness.

But here were signs of tilled fields, with here and there a fence.

Also there was water.

Down the stream ran no current.

The bed, however, was damp, with now and again a water-hole into which the loose oxen and the saddle-horses stamped and plunged their muzzles to the eyes.
Here, too, grew an occasional small willow.
"That must be Bill Black's mill they told us about," my father said, pointing out a building to my mother, whose anxiousness had drawn her to peer out over our shoulders.
An old man, with buckskin shirt and long, matted, sunburnt hair, rode back to our wagon and talked with father.