This was the hardest day of the three to bear. The heat of the sun, shining from an unclouded sky, was intolerable. As far as the eye could reach there was no shadow, nor any object to break the terrible monotony of its glare. A hot wind from the south whirled the light soil aloft in suffocating clouds of dust. The men of the three divisions were becoming desperate. They knew that this killing pace could not be maintained much longer, and the twenty-four mile run was the result of a tremendous effort to reach the Arkansas River that day.