noon
The escarpment began to rise , to change color , to show breaks upon its rocky face . Whenever the rangers rode out on the brow of a knoll or ridge or an eminence , before starting to descend , Ladd required of Gale a long , careful , sweeping survey of the desert ahead through the field glass . There were streams of white dust to be seen , streaks of yellow dust , trailing low clouds of sand over the glistening dunes , but no steadily rising , uniformly shaped puffs that would tell a tale of moving horses on the desert . At noon the rangers got out of the thick cactus . Moreover , the gravel-bottomed washes , the low weathering , rotting ledges of yellow rock gave place to hard sandy rolls and bare clay knolls . The desert resembled a rounded hummocky sea of color . All light shades of blue and pink and yellow and mauve were there dominated by the glaring white sun .