It looked as though it had careened clear from the road on to a slant of hard-baked open ground, only to come ricocheting back to the driveway.

Its driver was bringing it into line with the halted ears, but to the right of Jerry's where hard-baked ground lay between the road and the railway.

It told her that she was standing in water over her ankles and the hard-baked ground had dissolved into mud.

Alara watched her foster daughter scamper away across the hard-baked ground and experienced mingled emotions: pride, and guilt.

"No." She reached down with her toe and scraped a curved line on the hard-baked ground.

Outside, heat shimmered above hard-baked ground and scanty brown grass, but here was most pleasant.

"Tracks wouldn't show on this hard-baked ground," grunted the detective.

It showed the barren, rock-strewn surface outside the base: the Sun was up and the hard-baked ground looked hot enough to melt.

With white ash the Omani elders and headmen marked out the duelling ring on the hard-baked ground below the walls of the fort.

The sand merged into hard-baked ground, became cracked and scarred with rock-filled guDeys.