A giant mesquite tree, piled high with clinging drifts, rose up before the crest of his wave, and as he plowed in between them the edge of the crest poured down in a whispering cascade. Then more trees loomed up, and hundreds of white bushes each mounted on its pedestal of sand; and at the base of each salt-bush there were kangaroo-rat holes and the tracery of their tails in the dust. Men called it Death Valley, but for such as these it was a place of fullness and joy. They had capered about, striking the ground with their tails at the end of each playful jump, and the dry, brittle salt-bushes had been feast enough to them, who never knew the taste of grass or water. The sand-wave rose higher, leaving a damp hollow behind it where ice-plants grew green and rank; and as he crept along the thunder of his exhaust started tons of sliding silt. His wheels raced and burrowed as he struck a soft spot, and then abruptly they sank. He dug them out carefully and backed away, but a mound of drifted sand barred his way. Twist and turn as he would he could not get around it and at last he climbed to its summit. The sun was setting in purple and fire behind the black shoulder of the Panamints and like a path of gold it marked out the way, the only way to cross the Valley. At the south was the Sink with its treacherous bog-holes and further north the sand-hills were limitless--the only way, where the wagon-wheels had crossed, was buried deep in the sand. Three great mountains of sand, like huge breakers of the sea, had swept in and covered the wheel-tracks; and far to the west in the path of the sun their summits loomed two hundred feet high. He went back to his car and drove it desperately at the slope, only to bury the rear wheels to the axles; and as he dug them out the sand from the wave crest began to whisper and slip and slide. He cleared a great space and started his motor, but at the first shuddering tug the sand began to tremble and in a rush the wave was upon him. It buried him deep and as he leapt from his machine little rills of singing sand flowed around it. So far it had carried him, this high-powered, steel-springed racer; but now he must leave it for the sand to cover over and cross the great Valley alone. On many a rocky slope and sliding sand-hill it had clutched and plunged and fought its way, but now it was smothered in the treacherous, silt-fine sand and he must leave it, like a partner, to die. Yet if die it must, then in its desert burial the last trace of Wiley Holman would be lost. The first wind that blew would wipe out his footprints and the racer would sink beneath the waves. Wiley took his canteen, and Charley's bottle of whiskey, his rifle and a small sack of food and dared the great silence alone.