“You did very well, Ned,” he said.  “Of course, no one likes to kill a horse, but it’s the horses that bring on the Lipans, and the fewer horses they have the better for us.”

Ned also reloaded as they galloped and then said: 

“Don’t you think they’re dropping back a little?”

“Yes, they want to keep out of range.  They know that our rifles carry farther than theirs, and they will not take any more risk until they finally corner us, of which they feel sure.”

“But of which we are not so sure.”

“No, and we are going to be hidden from them, for a while, by something.  You haven’t noticed, Ned, that the country is rapidly growing much worse, and that we are now in what is practically a sandy desert.  You don’t see even a yucca, but you do see something whirling there in the southwest.  That’s a ‘dust devil,’ and there’s a half dozen more whirling in our direction.  We’re going to have a sand storm.”

Ned looked with interest.  The “dust devils,” rising up like water spouts, danced over the surface of the sand.  They were a half dozen, then a dozen, then twenty.  A sharp wind struck the faces of the two fugitives, and it had an edge of fine sand that stung.  All the “dust devils” were merged and the air darkened rapidly.  The cloud of dust about them thickened.  They drew their sombreros far down over their eyes, and rode very close together.  They could not see twenty yards away, and if they became separated in the dust storm it was not likely that they would ever see each other again.  But they urged their horses on at a good rate, trusting to the instinct of the animals to take them over a safe course.

Ned had not only pulled the brim of his sombrero down over his eyes, but he reinforced it with one hand to keep from being blinded, for the time, by the sand, but it was hard work.  As a final resort he let the lids remain open only enough for him to see his comrade who was but three feet away.  Meanwhile, he felt the sand going down his collar, and entering every opening of his clothing, scratching and stinging his skin.  The wind all the time was roaring in his ears, and now and then the horses neighed in alarm.  But they kept onward.  Ned knew that they were passing dips and swells, but he knew nothing else.

The storm blew itself out in about three hours.  Ned and Obed emerged from an obscurity as great as that of night.  The wind ceased shrieking and was succeeded by a stillness that was almost deathly in comparison.  The sun came out suddenly, and shone brightly over the dips and swells.  But Ned and Obed looked at each other and laughed.  Both were so thickly plastered with sand and dust that they had little human semblance.

Ned shook himself, and a cloud of dust flew from him, but so much remained that he could not tell the difference.

“I think we’d better take a drink out of our water bottles,” said Obed.  “I’d like mighty well to have a bath, too, but I don’t see a bath tub convenient.  Is there any sign of our friends, the enemy, Ned?”