Crossword-Solution: SAHUAROS 8 letters, 2 clues 🏆 scrabble score: 11

They had left the sahuaros behind and were coming down among widely scattered salt bushes to the border of an utterly barren alkali flat.

Upon that great mesa where the bronco mustangs from the Peaks still defied the impetuosity of men, the giant _sahuaros_ towered in a mighty forest as far as the eye could see, yet between each stalk there lay a wide space, studded here and there with niggerheads of bristling spines, and fuzzy _chollas_, white as the backs of sheep and thorny beyond reason.

Nor was this all: in the immensity of distance there was room for _sahuaros_ and niggerheads and _chollas_, and much besides.

The two letters lay charred to ashes among the glowing coals, but their words, even the kindest meant, were seared deep in his heart, fresh hurts upon older scars, and as he sat staring at the gaunt _sahuaros_ on the hilltops he meditated gloomily upon his reply.

From the high summit of the butte all the world lay spread out like a panorama,--the slopes and cañons of Bronco Mesa, picketed with giant _sahuaros_; the silvery course of the river flowing below; the unpeopled peaks and cliffs of the Superstitions; and a faint haze-like zephyr, floating upon the eastern horizon.