They are more like spectres than men.
And the scene around them is in keeping.

The plain, far as the eye can reach, is covered with _artemisia_, whose hoary foliage, in close contact at the tops, displays a continuation of surface like a vast winding-sheet spread over the world.
Across this fall the shadows of the two men, proportioned to their respective heights.

That of the ex-Ranger extends nearly a mile before him; for the sun is low down, and they have its beams upon their backs.
They are facing eastward, in the hope of being able to reach the brow of the Llano where it abuts on the Texan prairies; though in the heart of one of them this hope is nearly dead.

Frank Hamersley has but slight hopes that he will ever again see the homes of civilisation, or set foot upon its frontier.

Even the ci-devant Ranger inclines to a similar way of thinking.
Not far off are other animated beings that seem to rejoice.