A WILD DASH FOR THE HILLS
Old Kirkby, who had been lazily mending a saddle the greater part of the
morning, had eaten his dinner, smoked his pipe and was now stretched out
on the grass in the warm sun taking a nap. Mrs. Maitland was drowsing
over a book in the shadow of one of the big pines, when Pete, the horse
wrangler, who had been wandering rather far down the canyon rounding up
the ever straying stock, suddenly came bursting into the camp.
"Heavens!" he cried, actually kicking the prostrate frontiersman as he
almost stumbled over him. "Wake up, old man, an'--"
"What the--" began Kirkby fiercely, thus rudely aroused from slumber and
resentful of the daring and most unusual affront to his dignity and
station, since all men, and especially the younger ones, held him in
great honor.
"Look there!" yelled Pete in growing excitement and entirely oblivious
to his _lese-majeste_, pointing at a black cloud rolling over the top of
the range. "It'll be a cloud burst sure, we'll have to git out o' here
an' in a hurry too. Oh, Mrs. Maitland."
By this time Kirkby was on his feet. The storm had stolen upon him
sleeping and unaware, the configuration of the canyon having completely
hid its approach. At best the three in the camp could not have
discovered it until it was high in the heavens. Now the clouds were
already approaching the noonday sun. Kirkby was alive to the situation
at once; he had the rare ability of men of action, of awakening with all
his faculties at instant command; he did not have to rub his eyes and
wonder where he was, and speculate as to what was to be done. The moment
that his eyes, following Pete's outstretched arm, discovered the black
mass of clouds, he ran toward Mrs. Maitland, and standing on no ceremony
he shook her vigorously by the shoulder.
"We'll have to run for our lives, ma'm," he said briefly. "Pete, drive
the stock up on the hills, fur as you kin, the hosses pertikler, they'll
be more to us an' them burros must take keer of themselves."
Pete needed no urging, he was off like a shot in the direction of the
improvised corral. He loosed the horses from their pickets and started
them up the steep trail that led down from the hogback to the camp by
the water's edge. He also tried to start the burros he had just rounded
up in the same direction. Some of them would go and some of them would
not. He had his hands full in an instant. Meanwhile Kirkby did not
linger by the side of Mrs. Maitland; with incredible agility for so old
a man he ran over to the tent where the stores were kept and began
picking out such articles of provision as he could easiest carry.
"Come over here, Mrs. Maitland," he cried. "We'll have to carry up on
the hill somethin' to keep us from starvin' till we git back to town. We
hadn't orter camped in this yere pocket noways, but who'd ever expected
anything like this now."
"What do you fear?" asked the woman, joining him as she spoke and
waiting for his directions.
"Looks to me like a cloud bust," was the answer. "Creek's pretty full
now, an' if she does break everything below yere'll go to hell on a
run."
It was evidence of his perturbation and anxiety that he used such
language which, however, in the emergency did not seem unwarranted even
to the refined ear of Mrs. Maitland.
"Is it possible?" she exclaimed.
"Taint only possible, it's sartin. Now ma'm," he hastily bundled up a
lot of miscellaneous provisions in a small piece of canvas, tied it up
and handed it to her, "that'll be for you." Immediately after he made up
a much larger bundle in another tent fly, adding, "an' this is mine."
"Oh, let us hurry," cried Mrs. Maitland, as a peal of thunder, low,
muttered, menacing, burst from the flying clouds now obscuring the sun,
and rolled over the camp.
"We've got time enough yit," answered Kirkby coolly calculating their
chances. "Best git your slicker on, you'll need it in a few minutes."
Mrs. Maitland ran to her own tent and soon came out with sou'wester and
yellow oil skins completely covering her. Kirkby meantime had donned his
own old battered soiled rain clothes and had grabbed up Pete's.
"I brought the children's coats along," said Mrs. Maitland, extending
three others.
"Good," said Kirkby, "now we'll take our packs an'--"
"Do you think there is any danger to Robert?"
"He'll git nothin' worse'n a wettin'," returned the old man confidently.
"If we'd pitched the tents up on the hogback, that's all we'd a been in
for."
"I have to leave the tents and all the things," said Mrs. Maitland.
"You can stay with them," answered Kirkby, dryly, "but if what I think's
goin' to happen comes off, you won't have no need of nothin' no
more--Here she comes."
As he spoke there was a sudden swift downpour of rain, not in drops, but
in a torrent. Catching up his own pack and motioning the woman to do
likewise with her load, Kirkby caught her by the hand, and half led,
half dragged her up the steep trail from the brook to the ridge which
bordered the side of the canyon. The canyon was much wider here than
further up and there was much more room and much more space for the
water to spread. Yet, they had to hurry for their lives as it was. They
had gone up scarcely a hundred feet when the disgorgement of the heavens
took place. The water fell with such force, directness and
continuousness that it almost beat them down. It ran over the trail down
the side of the mountain in sheets like waterfalls. It required all the
old man's skill and address to keep himself and his companion from
losing their footing and falling down into the seething tumult below.
The tents went down in an instant. Where there had been a pleasant bit
of meadow land was now a muddy tossing lake of black water. Some of the
horses and most of the burros which Pete had been unable to do anything
with were engulfed in a moment. The two on the mountain side could see
them swimming for dear life as they swept down the canyon. Pete himself,
with a few of the animals, was already scrambling up to safety.
Speech was impossible between the noise of the falling rain and the
incessant peals of thunder, but by persistent gesture old Kirkby urged
the terrified trembling woman up the trail until they finally reached
the top of the hogback, where under the poor shelter of the stunted
pines they joined Pete with such of the horses as he had been able to
drive up. Kirkby taking a thought for the morrow, noted that there were
four of them, enough to pull the wagon if they could get back to it.
After the first awful deluge of the cloud burst it moderated slightly,
but the hard rain came down steadily, the wind rose as well and in spite
of their oil skins they were soon wet and cold. It was impossible to
make a fire, there was no place for them to go, nothing to be done, they
could only remain where they were and wait. After a half hour of
exposure to the merciless fury of the storm, a thought came suddenly to
Mrs. Maitland; she leaned over and caught the frontiersman by his wet
sleeve. Seeing that she wished to speak to him he bent his head toward
her lips.
"Enid," she cried, pointing down the canyon; she had not thought before
of the position of the girl.
Kirkby, who had not forgotten her, but who had instantly realized that
he could do nothing for her, shook his head, lifted his eyes and
solemnly pointed his finger up to the gray skies. He had said nothing to
Mrs. Maitland before, what was the use of troubling her.
"God only kin help her," he cried; "she's beyond the help of man."
Ah, indeed, old trapper, whence came the confident assurance of that
dogmatic statement? For as it chanced at that very moment the woman for
whose peril your heart was wrung was being lifted out of the torrent by
a man's hand! And, yet, who shall say that the old hunter was not right,
and that the man himself, as men of old have been, was sent from God?
"It can't be," began Mrs. Maitland in great anguish for the girl she had
grown to love.
"Ef she seed the storm an' realized what it was, an' had sense enough
to climb up the canyon wall," answered the other, "she won't be no worse
off 'n we are; ef not--"
Mrs. Maitland had only to look down into the seething caldron to
understand the possibility of that "if."
"Oh," she cried, "let us pray for her that she sought the hills."
"I've been a doin' it," said the old man gruffly.
He had a deep vein of piety in him, but like other rich ores it had to
be mined for in the depths before it was apparent.
By slow degrees the water subsided, and after a long while the rain
ceased, a heavy mist lay on the mountains and the night approached
without any further appearance of the veiled sun. Toward evening Robert
Maitland with the three men and the three children joined the wretched
trio above the camp. Maitland, wild with excitement and apprehension,
had pressed on ahead of the rest. It was a glad faced man indeed who ran
the last few steps of the rough way and clasped his wife in his arms,
but as he did so he noticed that one was missing.
"Where is Enid?" he cried, releasing his wife.
"She went down the canyon early this mornin' intendin' to stay all day,"
slowly and reluctantly answered old Kirkby, "an'--"
He paused there, it wasn't necessary for him to say anything more.
Maitland walked to the edge of the trail and looked down into the
valley. It had been swept clean of the camp. Rocks had been rolled over
upon the meadow land, trunks of trees torn up by the roots had lodged
against them, it was a scene of desolate and miserable confusion and
disaster.
"Oh, Robert, don't you think she may be safe?" asked Mrs. Maitland.
"There's jest a chance, I think, that she may have suspicioned the storm
an' got out of the canyon," suggested the old frontiersman.
"A slim chance," answered Maitland gloomily. "I wouldn't have had this
happen for anything on earth."
"Nor me; I'd a heap ruther it had got me than her," said Kirkby simply.
"I didn't see it coming," continued Maitland nodding as if Kirkby's
statement were to be accepted as a matter of course, as indeed it was.
"We were on the other slope of the mountain, until it was almost over
head."
"Nuther did I. To tell the truth I was lyin' down nappin' w'en Pete,
yere, who'd been down the canyon rounding up some of the critters, came
bustin' in on us."
"I ain't saved but four hosses," said Pete mournfully, "and there's only
one burro on the hogback."
"We came back as fast as we could," said Maitland. "I pushed on ahead.
George, Bradshaw and Phillips are bringing Bob and the girls. We must
search the canyon."
"It can't be done to-night, old man," said Kirkby.
"I tell you we can't wait, Jack!"
"We've got to. I'm as willin' to lay down my life for that young gal as
anybody on earth, but in this yere mist an' as black a night as it's
goin' to be, we couldn't go ten rod without killin' ourselves an' we
couldn't see nothin' noways."
"But she may be in the canyon."
"If she's in the canyon 'twon't make no difference to her w'ether we
finds her to-morrer or next day or next year, Bob."
Maitland groaned in anguish.
"I can't stay here inactive," he persisted stubbornly.
"It's a hard thing, but we got to wait till mornin'. Ef she got out of
the canyon and climbed up on the hogback she'll be all right; she'll soon
find out she can't make no progress in this mist and darkness. No, old
friend, we're up agin it hard; we jest got to stay the night w'ere we
are an' as long as we got to wait we might as well make ourselves as
comfortable as possible. For the wimmen an' children anyway. I fetched
up some ham and some canned goods and other eatin's in these yere canvas
sacks, we might kindle a fire--"
"It's hardly possible," said Maitland, "we shall have to eat it cold."
"Oh, Robert," pleaded his wife, "isn't it possible that she may have
escaped?"
"Possible, yes, but--"
"We won't give up hope, ma'am," said Kirkby, "until to-morrer w'en we've
had a look at the canyon."
By this time the others joined the party. Phillips and Bradshaw showed
the stuff that was in them; they immediately volunteered to go down the
canyon at once, knowing little or nothing of its dangers and indifferent
to what they did know, but as Kirkby had pointed out the attempt was
clearly impossible. Maitland bitterly reproached himself for having
allowed the girl to go alone, and in those self reproaches old Kirkby
joined.
They were too wet and cold to sleep, there was no shelter and it was not
until early in the morning they succeeded in kindling a fire. Meanwhile
the men talked the situation over very carefully. They were two days'
journey from the wagons. It was necessary that the woman and children
should be taken back at once. Kirkby hadn't been able to save much more
than enough to eat to get them back to a ranch or settlement, and on
very short rations at best. It was finally decided that George and Pete
with Mrs. Maitland, the two girls and the youngster should go back to
the wagon, drive to the nearest settlement, leave the women and then
return on horseback with all speed to meet Maitland and Kirkby who would
meanwhile search the canyon.
The two men from the east had to go back with the others although they
pleaded gallantly to be allowed to remain with the two who were to take
up the hunt for Enid. Maitland might have kept them with him, but that
meant retaining a larger portion of the scanty supplies that had been
saved, and he was compelled against his will to refuse their requests.
Leaving barely enough to subsist Maitland and Kirkby for three or four
days, or until the return of the relief party, the groups separated at
daybreak.
"Oh, Robert," pleaded his wife, as he kissed her good-by, "take care of
yourself, but find Enid."
"Yes," answered her husband, "I shall, never fear, but I must find the
dear girl or discover what has become of her."
There was not time for further leave taking. A few hand clasps from man
to man and then Robert Maitland standing in the midst of the group bowed
his head in the sunny morning, for the sky again was clear, and poured
out a brief prayer that God would prosper them, that they would find the
child and that they would all be together again in health and happiness.
And without another word, he and Kirkby plunged down the side of the
canyon, the others taking up their weary march homeward with sad hearts
and in great dismay.