Dust of the Desert

Roads of men thread the world. They thunder with a life flood. They are vibrant with a pulse of affairs. By land and water and air they link to-day to to-morrow. But El Camino de los Muertos (the Road of the Dead Men) is a dim highway leading nowhere but back and back to forgotten yesterdays. Its faint sign-posts once were vivid in lettering of tears and blood. Its stages were measured by the sum of all human hardihood. Faith, valour, reckless adventuring, thirst for gold, love o’ women—these the links in the measuring chain that marked its course through a dead land. And black crosses formed of lava stones laid down in the sand; these abide over all the length of the Road of the Dead Men from Caborca to Yuma to cry to the white-hot sky of slain hopes and faith betrayed in those buried years gone.