midday
They felt that they were face to face with the power of untamed nature -- the desert and the savage inhabitants of it -- and that even they were units in an army of progress which was conquering that nature and making it minister to the needs of civilized man . Of course , these were not their actual thoughts , but that was certainly the general effect which night-watching had upon them . Six days went by in this way and it appeared as if all danger was past . The party had been making towards a low range of hills on the western horizon , and on the seventh day the plant passed up a little valley and halted on the top for midday camp . Through the clean sun-filled air of Central Australia the view was so clear that all sense of distance was lost , and objects many days away seemed no farther off than a few hours ' ride . The character of the country was the same as that which they had travelled over since leaving Oodnadatta : masses of scanty mulga scrub standing out dark on a landscape of vast bare plains or rolling sand-hills . Far away , a pale-blue silhouette against the bright north-west sky , was a range of high mountains .