He entered a zone of clay-dunes of violet and heliotrope hues; and then a
belt of lava and cactus. Reddish points studded the desert, and here and
there were meagre patches of white grass. Far away myriads of cactus
plants showed like a troop of distorted horsemen. As he went on the
grass failed, and streams of jagged lava flowed downward. Beds of
cinders told of the fury of a volcanic fire. Soon Hare had to dismount
to make moccasins for Wolf's hind feet; and to lead Silvermane carefully
over the cracked lava. For a while there were strips of ground bare of
lava and harboring only an occasional bunch of cactus, but soon every
foot free of the reddish iron bore a projecting mass of fierce spikes and
thorns. The huge barrel-shaped cacti, and thickets of slender dark-green
rods with bayonet points, and broad leaves with yellow spines, drove Hare
and his sore-footed fellow-travellers to the lava.
Hare thought there must be an end to it some time, yet it seemed as
though he were never to cross that black forbidding inferno. Blistered
by the heat, pierced by the thorns, lame from long toil on the lava, he
was sorely spent when once more he stepped out upon the bare desert.
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