The roof appeared to be made of poles covered with red earth.
Like a huge cold rock on a wide plain this house stood there on the windy slope. Shefford knew it was an outpost of the trader @Presbrey. He had heard of the trader in both @Flagstaff and @Tuba. But no living thing appeared in the limit of Shefford's vision. He gazed at the unwelcoming house with a shudder, took in the dark eyelike windows, the sweep of barren slope merging into the vast red valley, the bold, bleak bluffs beyond.
Could anyone really live here? The nature of the valley forbade the warmth of a place to call home. Shefford thought irresistibly of how his enemies would have sent him to just such a hell. He thought bitterly of the narrow congregation that had proved him a failure in the ministry.
