ACROSS THE PAINTED DESERT
“See them blue an’ white striped buttes yander, Sid?” asked John,
pointing across the stony desert with his quirt. “That’s limestone, in
these parts, an’ it ginerally means a tank ef thar’s any water at all.
Navaho Wells is in there, and we’ll camp for the night.”
“Just what I wanted--to have my first night in the desert out under the
stars!” exclaimed Colonel Colvin, happily. “We stop here for the night,
eh, John?”
“Shore; no more water for twenty miles, sir. Them boys ain’t growed
their saddle corns yet, neither, an’ they’ll be plumb glad to get down.
I know how ’tis! Thar’s a nice flat up on the buttes, Colonel. Dust
off the t’rantulas and horned toads an’ rattlers off it, an’ a man’ll
sleep thar peaceful as a new borned babe.”
Sid nodded approvingly. He was glad they were sleeping out, too. There
couldn’t be too much of it for him! He said nothing about his aching
knees, but his gait told the older men for him. He heeded no bodily
aches, now, however, for a new and delicious happiness was filling his
breast and a load of worry was vanishing fast. His father, he could
see, was fast picking up health and strength; had been ever since they
had started on this trip. Thirty years ago he had ridden these same
hills, with hostile Apaches ambushed in these very buttes. Sid could
imagine those blue-clad, yellow-scarfed cavalrymen with their friendly
Indian scouts and the plainsmen rangers, all just like a Remington
picture, painted with this place for a stage. In those days his father
was one of the young lieutenants of the command. Now he could see the
life-giving power of memory at work, for the strength of those rugged
days seemed to be reëntering the Colonel’s body and spirit. In two more
weeks he would be heavy and lean and iron-hard.
They headed the horses up a slope of the buttes. Its little flat
commanded a magnificent prospect. Away to the west stretched line on
line of stratified ridges, with the flat top of the Hopi mesa far on
the horizon. To the east lay a silver-green flat of sage brush, bounded
by jagged red peaks. Great woolly clouds rolled in rose and lavender
masses over the bare rock saw-tooth ridges that filled in under the
horizon. Water was there none, but of arid plant life there was
abundance.
“Here!” said the Colonel, looking silently across the desert, while
memories of old Indian days crowded his mind, “it was right over there
beyond those buttes to the east, that we of the Fifth Cavalry came down
from Fort Defiance on our southward trail after Chief Chuntz and his
Apaches, boys. A bad business; but it had to be done, I suppose. I’ll
tell you of that cave fight, some day. This place is good enough for
us, John.”
Mesa Joe and Red Jake turned out the horses while Big John loped out
into the sage to wait for the ranch wagon and get provisions and the
sleeping gear from it. The boys set about cutting a quantity of sage
bushes, from which they stripped a huge pile of fragrant browse.
Colonel Colvin untied his cantle roll, and out of it took a six-by-nine
foot light tarp, which was all the shelter he ever used. Setting
it up with two stakes and its rear corners guyed to the rocky ledge
back of the camp site, they had a sun shelter under which browse was
spread out. The canteens were hung in a row in the shade, and out of
the saddle bags of his McClellan army saddle the Colonel produced
emergency rations that had been packed there in the Den, back home,
before shipping the saddle out. There was bacon and corn meal, sugar
and coffee, and a can of condensed cream.
Then the cowman came in and started a small fire of greasewood while
Colonel Colvin produced an aluminum army mess tin with cover and
folding handle, about nine by seven inches and perhaps an inch and a
half deep.
“Best little desert baker you ever saw, boys,” he laughed. “Many a corn
cake I’ve shaken up in her!” He made a thick batter of flour, corn meal
and baking powder, and poured the pan about half full. Balancing it on
two stones over a bed of coals, he heaped a pile of live coals on the
cover. In about fifteen minutes he brushed them off and peered inside.
“Brown as your hand! She’d go better with an egg beaten into the
batter. Here’s for another one.”
The boys were too tired and sore to do much beside watch the
cake-making. When six of them were done, Big John came riding back from
the ranch wagon that had gone into camp out on the flat. He had a bag
of oats, a ham, and a sweating canvas bag of water hung to his saddle.
“Shore, fill up the crowd with hog an’ hominy, Colonel,” he grinned.
“Ain’t nothing better’n ham and corn cakes been invented since Pharaoh
missed the ford, I’m settin’ here to tell ye!”
He got after the ham with his bowie knife, and soon a huge slice was
sizzling in the Colonel’s mess kit. The boys went up on the rocks and
watched the sunset, unwilling to miss a single moment of their first
evening in the desert. A wild and beautiful land was this; color,--red
and rose and purple and yellow,--with gleaming glories of the sunset
tinting the cloud edges. Deep blue shadows crept out under the flanks
of the mesas. All was still and silent; a peace passing understanding
brooded over the whole world.
“Gosh, but that’s wonderful!” exclaimed Scotty, fervently, as the sun
plunged over the western rim of the world, striking turret and pinnacle
and bastion alike brick-red in scarlet edgings of fire. “I tell you,
Sid, these moments are what we live for in the open! Will we ever
forget this scene?”
“Makes me feel calm, and serene, and--happy!” replied Sid, softly.
“Happiness is what everybody is striving after--oh, so hard!--and few
or none ever have any. This is the secret of it, to me. A simple,
healthful life in the open, and plenty of the big, beautiful outdoors
to look at and wonder over,” concluded the youth, surprised at his own
eloquence.
“You said it, Sid!” came the Colonel’s deep voice behind them. “My
happiest hours have all been out here, where a man can see a big enough
chunk of the earth to realize his own insignificant place in the scheme
of things. Back east we tend too much to magnify our own importance,
and I always feel cramped and worried, and get pestered by trifles. No
chance for that out here--in the presence of _this_!”
He waved his arm to the west. Under a roseate afterglow the grand
distances of the desert were bathed in a flood of purples and
lavenders, with tints of deep orange on the mesa flanks to the west,
while soft, tender shadows of misty blue filled the rugged valleys.
They sat in silence, drinking it in, for such wine was good for the
soul. The light of a distant watch fire on Walpi shone through the
dusk, a tiny point of light fifty miles away. The Hopi Indians, at this
time, were performing their mystic rites of the sunset, and a subtle
comradeship with them reached out across the desert in the flicker of
those rays----
“Chuck pile!--Come and get it!” rang out the mighty horn of Big John’s
voice, breaking in on their reverie. The Colonel arose with a sigh of
blissful content. “Seems like old times again, Sid! Let’s eat hearty!”
They climbed down to the little flat, where a thin wisp of gray-blue
smoke rose straight up in the still air from the remnants of the cook
fire. The boys fell on the ham and corn cakes and coffee ravenously,
batting off the four dogs, who were most oppressively sociable, trying
to gobble morsels of food right out of their masters’ mouths. The stars
came out while they were eating. Then Big John and the Arizonans fell
over on their backs and lit indolent cigarettes; the Colonel and the
boys sought their lookout rocks, to feed on the desert, shrouded in its
impenetrable gloom under a glory of western stars.
After a time the sharp night chill drove them under the shelter.
Huddled forms out in the sage told of the cowmen fast asleep where
they lay. Rolling in their blankets, the boys voted to call it a day.
Sid lay awake, listening to the rustlings of a pack rat which had come
foraging into camp, and enjoying the wild howl of the coyotes barking
in shrill chorus from the mesas all about them. It was all wild, lonely
and beautiful--too beautiful for anyone but outers and very honest men,
he decided, as he dozed off to sleep, with the sweet tang of sage in
his nostrils.
Next morning before dawn the whole party was awake, the boys shivering
and glad enough to warm their hands before the fire. Bacon, flapjacks
and coffee were in progress, and, downing them, the horses were
unpicketed and fed and the whole cavalcade started for Hinchman’s. The
sharp, bracing air was good for horses and men alike. They were full
of oats and bacon and high spirits. Sid raced along with Scotty beside
him, giving their ponies full rein to run off the first enthusiasm of a
new day. Big John brought up the rear, singing a cow song at the top of
his lungs, the meter chiming in with the jolt of his horse.
“Whoo--pee,--de--I--yaho! Git along lit--tle dogie,
For ’tis your misfortune an’ none of--my own!
Whoo--pee,--de--I--yaho! Git along lit--tle dogie,
For I know that Wy--O--ming will be your new home,”
he sang, in a monstrous shout, bawling out the I’s and O’s in a blare
like a foghorn. The boys giggled with joy as verse after verse of the
cowman’s riding song roared out.
“They sing that song to soothe the cattle when riding around the herd
at night,” laughed Sid. “It sure carries well! The cows are perfectly
contented so long as they hear a human voice. Otherwise they are apt to
get nervous about wolves, and stampede.”
“What’s a ‘dogie,’ Sid?” asked Scotty, posting as his pony changed gait
to a trot.
“Oh, that’s a lean little yearling that they used to drive north to
Wyoming, for Government rations for the poor Indians. Listen----”
“Oh, you’ll be beef for Un-cle Sam’s Injuns,
It’s ‘Beef,--heap Beef!’ we he-ar them cry,
Git along, git along, git along lit-tle dogies,
For you’ll be beef steers by and by,”
sang Big John’s concluding verse, Red Jake chiming in on the chorus,--
“Whoop-ee, de--I--yaho!” etc.
Sunrise over the desert! A magnificent spectacle, a stunning spectacle,
a gorgeous, overwhelming, awe-inspiring spectacle! The boys fell head
over heels in love with the whole thing, and then as if to give it a
touch of adventure, Pepper let out a squeak, with a funny break in it
like a boy’s voice changing, and streaked across the sage. After him
tore Lee and Bourbon, belly down, legs flying like long broom handles.
“Hi! Hi! _Yip--yip!_--Coyote!” yelled Red Jake, wheeling his broncho to
flash off after the dogs. “Git him, boys!”
Ruler brayed a musical volley of hound notes, taking after the pups
in long bounds that closed up on them fast. A gray wolfish streak was
doing some fancy steps, twisting and turning through the greasewood
bushes. Sid galloped, Scotty galloped; after them thundered Big John
and the Colonel. The wind whistled around Sid’s ears as his pinto let
out speed.
“Run him down, fellers--watch out for prairie dog holes!” snorted Big
John, swerving the wild, white horse to the left to cut across the
coyote’s trail. The two Arizonans had fanned out in a wide bend; Sid
and Scotty jounced along together, pawing at their revolvers which were
tightly jammed in the saddle holsters; the horses streaked along with
a rapid clatter of hoof beats on the vast level floor of the desert,
which was the stage setting for their coyote run.
Sid yelled with glee. What a lot of _room_ there was in this country!
Bare mountains and mesas ringed the horizon, but for miles the flat,
gray sage and green greasewood dotted the red sand. The dogs looked
like little black specks, leaping and twisting through the low bushes.
The whole plain was flat as a floor, and the horses under them reached
out with flying hoofs in the unrestrained joy of racing. Then a jack
rabbit jumped from behind a sage bush, and the three pups dropped their
hot coyote trail and started after him.
“Wa--_hoo_! Stop them, boys!” roared the Colonel from his huge roan.
“Break ’em of that!”
He kept on after the coyote and Ruler. Sid tugged out his revolver and
fanned the air ahead of the jack rabbit. His bullets threw up spats of
white dust, and Pepper and Bourbon, who were yipping and squealing in
hot pursuit, nearly turned somersaults as a bullet threw a splash of
sand right before their faces. The dogs leaped back, falling all over
each other, and then the swift ponies wheeled around in front of them.
Scotty leaned far out of his saddle with swinging quirt.
“Back, Pep! Out of that, Bourbon! Nix on rabbit!--_Skip!_--VAMOOSE!”
he barked, lashing at them with his quirt. Sid thundered up on Pinto
and they headed the pups and drove them back, whimpering and cringing,
to where they had left the coyote track. The men were now at least
a mile away across the level basin, stringing along with Big John’s
white horse in the lead and Ruler far ahead of them all. The coyote was
evidently headed for some craggy red sawteeth where he could make his
escape from the horses uphill.
The boys called off the pups and headed across the flat, hoping that
the men would succeed in turning the coyote. Then little puffs of white
smoke came from the Arizonans. They could not hear the rifle shots,
but they saw the coyote turn, bewildered, heading down their way in
what looked like an easy lope. He saw them start their ponies into a
gallop and again turned like a flash, evidently intending to cross the
sage between the two parties. Pepper rose on his hind legs, got a sight
of the coyote, and started in long bounds over the sage, with Lee and
Bourbon at his heels.
“Now!” gritted Sid. “Head him off, Scotty!” They raced across the
coyote’s line. He was coming like the wind. Sid hauled Pinto up
abruptly on his haunches and aimed his long-barreled Officer’s Model
carefully. A spurt of dust sprang up just in front of the coyote. Sid
held the round white bead, well down in its notch, just ahead of the
flying, twisting animal, swung two yards ahead and fired. The coyote
slid to his haunches, snapping savagely at a wound in his side, and
then Pepper, Lee and Bourbon fell on him in a riot of howls and barks.
Sid whooped with joy as they rode down. This was fine medicine for
those houn’-dawg pups! It was impossible to shoot; the whirling mass of
black, tan and gray was too swift and intricate to risk a shot into it.
Came a rapid clatter of paws and a great, deep-voiced bray, as Ruler
charged down the slope and pitched headlong into the fray. Out of it
rose the coyote, borne aloft by the great bony jaws of Ruler about
his throat. There was a savage shake, a worrying and growling from the
pups, and then Red Jake clattered up, leaped off his pony, booted the
dogs aside and finished the gasping coyote with a single revolver shot
as it lay on its side.
“That’s the stuff!” yelled Colonel Colvin, galloping up on the roan.
“Mind the dogs--they’ll be at each other next--they’re wild with
fight!” He had scarcely spoken before Pepper flew jealously at Ruler
with bared fangs, while Bourbon turned and pitched into Lee where he
was worrying gleefully at the carcass. The boys dismounted with howls
of laughter and grabbed the belligerents by their collars.
“Some pups, Dad! Hang on to him, Scotty!” laughed Sid, slinging Bourbon
into the sage and aiming a kick at Lee. “First trophy of the desert,
fellers!”
“Nice li’l pasear,” remarked Red Jake, wiping the sweat from under his
sombrero. “You-all want the hide off this-yere?” he asked, looking to
the Colonel for orders.
“You bet! How far is it yet to the ranch, Jake?”
The Arizonan puckered up his eyes as he scanned the far horizon where
the colored buttes back of Hinchman’s loomed up. “Oh, ’bout eleven
miles, I reckon,” he decided.
Sid and Scotty stared unbelievingly. Why, those red mountains
_couldn’t_ be over five miles off! Their knees ached from the
unaccustomed saddle strains, but distances were deceiving in the desert
and there was an hour more of riding yet.
As they drew near the mountains, the long ’dobe walls of Hinchman’s
suddenly developed out of its misty background of mountain, mesquite
and cottonwood. It looked more like a fort than any ranch the boys had
ever seen before. Built during Apache times, its long outer walls were
bare save for a few small black windows up near the eaves of the red
tile roof. All around it was a bare, level space of desert, with not
a single grease bush for cover. Even now the Navahos or the Apaches
_might_ tear loose again over some real or imaginary grievance, and
Hinchman’s was an outpost in their country.
The sharp clip-clop of their ponies’ hoofs rang on the stone flagging
as they rode under the ’dobe arch into the big patio within the walls
of Hinchman’s. A couple of Indians took their horses as the boys
dismounted and looked curiously around them. Here was a sort of square
court, with a well surrounded by peach trees forming the center of the
stone driving space. An inner wall, with Spanish tiled roof sloping
inward all around, so as to turn the rainfall into the court drain
cistern and also be protected from rifle fire, formed a side to the
living rooms and stables that surrounded the patio. The windows in
these were larger, but also more than man high, and each room had a
door, mostly open, showing glimpses of the dark, cool depths within. In
one of them stood a huge, white-haired giant waving his arms joyfully.
“Howdy, Colvin!--Howdy! Get right down! Sho’ is glad to see y’u!”
roared the giant, running out to take the roan’s bridle reins.
“How!--Hinchy,--you old war-in-eye! Gad, but you look good to me!”
chortled the Colonel, wringing Hinchman’s hand. He leaped from his
horse, and the two old Army comrades hugged each other in a ponderous
bear dance about the patio. After an exchange of soul-satisfying
punches the boys were introduced. They decided they were going to like
this man. Black-eyed and long-nosed, he was all of six feet four in his
boots; his smile was constant and kindly, and there was a merry twinkle
in his eye that matched the Colonel’s own.
“Shore you look peaked, old-timer!” exclaimed Hinchman, searching
the Colonel over with solicitous eyes. “Look like you’d been dragged
through a knot-hole,--Jeementley-ding if you don’t!” he cried,
aggrieved sympathy in his tones. “Big John told me they’d worked you to
death down in Washington, but I never ’spected you’d look like this.”
“Oh, I’ll be all right, pronto,” grinned Colonel Colvin. “There wasn’t
any end to it, while it lasted, but it’s all over now,--thank God!
Enough of me--how’s everything with you, old settler? Still patriarch
of all the Indians of this section?” he quizzed.
“Still am!” rumbled Hinchman, emphatically. “I’m old ‘White Father
Hinch’ to all the Navaho north of us. They come to me with all their
troubles or send in runners about it. One got in last night with a
tough one for me to straighten out. It’s a medicine panther, Colvin,
that’s been stealing old Neyani’s sheep. The Indians are all plumb
scared of him; heap big medicine! They swear he’s black--can you beat
that?”
“Black!” echoed Colonel Colvin, incredulously, while the boys listened
in with flapping ears. “Freak coloration, eh? The Far East has black
leopards, you know, occurring clear down into Sumatra. It’s possible,
Hinchy. Where did the cougar get the black on his ugly face? No one
knows--nor why there are both black and spotted leopards, either. But
I don’t see where you should worry any, Hinchy--just say the word and
we’ll go up there and shoot him for you. We’ve got dogs, you know.”
“Precisely just what you can’t do, Colvin!” exclaimed Hinchman,
energetically. “It would be the worst kind of a sacrilege in the
Navaho’s eyes. You see, Dsilyi, the Navaho demigod, _he_ had four
panthers, a white one to the north, a tawny one to the west, a blue
one to the south, and a black one to the east. The Indians just know
that this is Dsilyi’s black panther--there’s no use arguing with them!
Therefore, either old Neyani or his son, Niltci, has been up to some
deviltry and the panther is being sent as a punishment. Not a redskin
of the lot will shoot him on a bet, nor even dare track him. You don’t
know how superstitious they are, Colvin! Sooner than build a fire with
a single stick from a hogan in which someone has died, a Navaho would
freeze to death. Sooner than touch a hair of Dsilyi’s medicine panther,
old Neyani and his whole family would let him take all their sheep and
starve to death. Right nice mix-up fo’ me to unravel, eh?”
“You’re dead right!” agreed the Colonel emphatically. “Say, the worst
uprising the Army ever had to deal with came from just such a freak
animal as this. You remember the Arapaho row in ’79, Hinchy?”
“You bet! I sure hope this isn’t goin’ to be anything like that! a
white buffalo, wasn’t it? And now, I’ve got a black cougar and a mess
of Indian superstitions on my hands!”