Bred of the Desert

It was high noon in the desert, but there was no dazzling sunlight. Over the earth hung a twilight, a yellow-pink softness that flushed across the sky like the approach of a shadow, covering everything yet concealing nothing, creeping steadily onward, yet seemingly still, until, pressing low over the earth, it took on changing color, from pink to gray, from gray to black–gloom that precedes tropical showers. Then the wind came–a breeze rising as it were from the hot earth–forcing the Spanish dagger to dipping acknowledgment, sending dust-devils swirling across the slow curves of the desert–and then the storm burst in all its might. For this was a storm–a sand-storm of the Southwest.