This, Casey knew, when his eyes lifted to look that way, marked the line of the Sante Fe and a train moving heavily upgrade to the west.
Toward it dipped the smooth stretch of barren mesa cut straight down the middle with a yellow line that was the highway up which Casey had driven the morning before.

The inimitable magic of distance and high desert air veiled greasewood, sage and sand with the glamour of unreality.

The mountains beyond, unspeakably desolate and forbidding at close range, and the little black buttes standing afar, off--small spewings of age-old volcanos dead before man was born--seemed fascinating, unknown islets anchored in a sea of enchantment.

Across the valley to the west nearer mountains, all amethyst and opal tinted, stood bold and inscrutable, with jagged peaks thrust into the blue to pierce and hold the little clouds that came floating by.

Even the gulch at hand had been touched by the enchanter's wand and smiled mysteriously in the vivid sunlight, the very air a-quiver with that indescribable beauty of the high mesa land which holds desert dwellers in thrall.
When first Casey saw the smoke smudge against the mountains to the south, he remembered his misadventure of the lower desert and swore.
When he looked again, the majestic sweep of distance gave him a satisfied feeling of freedom from the crowded pettinesses of the city.
For the first time since trouble met him in the trail between Victorville and Barstow, Casey heaved a sigh of content because he was once more out in the big land he loved.