noon
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 .