surrounded by fresh boot and horse tracks in the dust. Piles of slender
pine logs, trimmed flat on one side, were proof of somebody's intention
to erect a cabin. In a rage he flung himself from the saddle. It was not
many moments' work for him to push part of the fire under the fence, and
part of it against the pile of logs. The pitch-pines went off like
rockets, driving the thirsty cattle back.
“I'm going to trail those horse-tracks,” said Hare.
He tore down a portion of the fence enclosing the flume, and gave
Silvermane a drink, then put him to a fast trot on the white trail. The
tracks he had resolved to follow were clean-cut. A few inches of snow
had fallen in the valley, and melting, had softened the hard ground.
Silvermane kept to his gait with the tirelessness of a desert horse.
August Naab had once said fifty miles a day would be play for the
stallion. All the afternoon Hare watched the trail speed toward him and
the end of Coconina rise above him. Long before sunset he had reached
the slope of the mountain and had begun the ascent. Half way up he came
to the snow and counted the tracks of three horses. At twilight he rode
into the glade where August Naab had waited for his Navajo friends.
There, in a sheltered nook among the rocks, he unsaddled Silvermane,
covered and fed him, built a fire, ate sparingly of his meat and bread,
and rolling up in his blanket, was soon asleep.
He was up and off before sunrise, and he came out on the western slope
of Coconina just as the shadowy valley awakened from its misty sleep
into daylight. Soon the Pink Cliffs leaned out, glimmering and vast, to
change from gloomy gray to rosy glow, and then to brighten and to redden
in the morning sun.
The snow thinned and failed, but the iron-cut horsetracks showed plainly
in the trail. At the foot of the mountain the tracks left the White Sage
trail and led off to the north toward the cliffs. Hare searched the red
sage-spotted waste for Holderness's ranch. He located it, a black patch
on the rising edge of the valley under the wall, and turned Silvermane
into the tracks that pointed straight toward it.
The sun cleared Coconina and shone warm on his back; the Pink Cliffs
lifted higher and higher before him. From the ridge-tops he saw the
black patch grow into cabins and corrals. As he neared the ranch he came
into rolling pasture-land where the bleached grass shone white and the
cattle were ranging in the thousands. This range had once belonged to
Martin Cole, and Hare thought of the bitter Mormon as he noted the snug
cabins for the riders, the rambling, picturesque ranch-house, the large
corrals, and the long flume that ran down from the cliff. There was a
corral full of shaggy horses, and another full of steers, and two lines
of cattle, one going into a pond-corral, and one coming out. The air was
gray with dust. A bunch of yearlings were licking at huge lumps of brown
rock-salt. A wagonful of cowhides stood before the ranch-house.
Hare reined in at the door and helloed.
A red-faced ranger with sandy hair and twinkling eyes appeared.
“Hello, stranger, get down an' come in,” he said.
“Is Holderness here?” asked Hare.
“No. He's been to Lund with a bunch of steers. I reckon he'll be in
White Sage by now. I'm Snood, the foreman. Is it a job ridin' you want?”
“No.”
“Say! thet hoss--” he exclaimed. His gaze of friendly curiosity had
moved from Hare to Silvermane. “You can corral me if it ain't thet
Sevier range stallion!”
“Yes,” said Hare.
Snood's whoop brought three riders to the door, and when he pointed to
the horse, they stepped out with good-natured grins and admiring eyes.
“I never seen him but onc't,” said one.
“Lordy, what a hoss!” Snood walked round Silvermane. “If I owned this
ranch I'd trade it for that stallion. I know Silvermane. He an' I hed
some chases over in Nevada. An', stranger, who might you be?”
“I'm one of August Naab's riders.”
“Dene's spy!” Snood looked Hare over carefully, with much interest, and
without any show of ill-will. “I've heerd of you. An' what might one of
Naab's riders want of Holderness?”
“I rode in to Seeping Springs yesterday,” said Hare, eying the foreman.
“There was a new pond, fenced in. Our cattle couldn't drink. There were
a lot of trimmed logs. Somebody was going to build a cabin. I burned the
corrals and logs--and I trailed fresh tracks from Seeping Springs to
this ranch.”
“The h--l you did!” shouted Snood, and his face flamed. “See here,
stranger, you're the second man to accuse some of my riders of such
dirty tricks. That's enough for me. I was foreman of this ranch till
this minute. I was foreman, but there were things gain' on thet I didn't
know of. I kicked on thet deal with Martin Cole. I quit. I steal no
man's water. Is thet good with you?”
Snood's query was as much a challenge as a question. He bit savagely at
his pipe. Hare offered his hand.
“Your word goes. Dave Naab said you might be Holderness's foreman, but
you weren't a liar or a thief. I'd believe it even if Dave hadn't told
me.”
“Them fellers you tracked rode in here yesterday. They're gone now. I've
no more to say, except I never hired them.”
“I'm glad to hear it. Good-day, Snood, I'm in something of a hurry.”
With that Hare faced about in the direction of White Sage. Once clear of
the corrals he saw the village closer than he had expected to find it.
He walked Silvermane most of the way, and jogged along the rest, so that
he reached the village in the twilight. Memory served him well. He rode
in as August Naab had ridden out, and arrived at the Bishop's barn-yard,
where he put up his horse. Then he went to the house. It was necessary
to introduce himself for none of the Bishop's family recognized in him
the young man they had once befriended. The old Bishop prayed and
reminded him of the laying on of hands. The women served him with food,
the young men brought him new boots and garments to replace those that
had been worn to tatters. Then they plied him with questions about the
Naabs, whom they had not seen for nearly a year. They rejoiced at his
recovered health; they welcomed him with warm words.
Later Hare sought an interview alone with the Bishop's sons, and he told
them of the loss of the sheep, of the burning of the new corrals, of the
tracks leading to Holderness's ranch. In turn they warned him of his
danger, and gave him information desired by August Naab. Holderness's
grasp on the outlying ranges and water-rights had slowly and surely
tightened; every month he acquired new territory; he drove cattle
regularly to Lund, and it was no secret that much of the stock came from
the eastern slope of Coconina. He could not hire enough riders to do his
work. A suspicion that he was not a cattle-man but a rustler had slowly
gained ground; it was scarcely hinted, but it was believed. His
friendship with Dene had become offensive to the Mormons, who had
formerly been on good footing with him. Dene's killing of Martin Cole
was believed to have been at Holderness's instigation. Cole had
threatened Holderness. Then Dene and Cole had met in the main street of
White Sage. Cole's death ushered in the bloody time that he had
prophesied. Dene's band had grown; no man could say how many men he had
or who they were. Chance and Culver were openly his lieutenants, and
whenever they came into the village there was shooting. There were ugly
rumors afloat in regard to their treatment of Mormon women. The wives
and daughters of once peaceful White Sage dared no longer venture out-
of-doors after nightfall. There was more money in coin and more whiskey
than ever before in the village. Lund and the few villages northward
were terrorized as well as White Sage. It was a bitter story.
The Bishop and his sons tried to persuade Hare next morning to leave the
village without seeing Holderness, urging the futility of such a
meeting.
“I will see him,” said Hare. He spent the morning at the cottage, and
when it came time to take his leave he smiled into the anxious faces.
“If I weren't able to take care of myself August Naab would never have
said so.”
Had Hare asked himself what he intended to do when he faced Holderness
he could not have told. His feelings were pent-in, bound, but at the
bottom something rankled. His mind seemed steeped in still thunderous
atmosphere.
How well he remembered the quaint wide street, the gray church! As he
rode many persons stopped to gaze at Silvermane. He turned the corner
into the main thoroughfare. A new building had been added to the several
stores. Mustangs stood, bridles down, before the doors; men lounged
along the railings.
As he dismounted he heard the loungers speak of his horse, and he saw
their leisurely manner quicken. He stepped into the store to meet more
men, among them August Naab's friend Abe. Hare might never have been in
White Sage for all the recognition he found, but he excited something
keener than curiosity. He asked for spurs, a clasp-knife and some other
necessaries, and he contrived, when momentarily out of sight behind a
pile of boxes, to whisper his identity to Abe. The Mormon was
dumbfounded. When he came out of his trance he showed his gladness, and
at a question of Hare's he silently pointed toward the saloon.
Hare faced the open door. The room had been enlarged; it was now on a
level with the store floor, and was blue with smoke, foul with the fumes
of rum, and noisy with the voices of dark, rugged men.
A man in the middle of the room was dancing a jig.
“Hello, who's this?” he said, straightening up.
It might have been the stopping of the dance or the quick spark in
Hare's eyes that suddenly quieted the room. Hare had once vowed to
himself that he would never forget the scarred face; it belonged to the
outlaw Chance.
The sight of it flashed into the gulf of Hare's mind like a meteor into
black night. A sudden madness raced through his veins.
“Hello, Don't you know me?” he said, with a long step that brought him
close to Chance.
The outlaw stood irresolute. Was this an old friend or an enemy? His
beady eyes scintillated and twitched as if they sought to look him over,
yet dared not because it was only in the face that intention could be
read.
The stillness of the room broke to a hoarse whisper from some one.
“Look how he packs his gun.”
Another man answering whispered: “There's not six men in Utah who pack a
gun thet way.”
Chance heard these whispers, for his eye shifted downward the merest
fraction of a second. The brick color of his face turned a dirty white.
“Do you know me?” demanded Hare.
Chance's answer was a spasmodic jerking of his hand toward his hip.
Hare's arm moved quicker, and Chance's Colt went spinning to the floor.
“Too slow,” said Hare. Then he flung Chance backward and struck him
blows that sent his head with sodden thuds against the log wall. Chance
sank to the floor in a heap.
Hare kicked the outlaw's gun out of the way, and wheeled to the crowd.
Holderness stood foremost, his tall form leaning against the bar, his
clear eyes shining like light on ice.
“Do you know me?” asked Hare, curtly.
Holderness started slightly. “I certainly don't,” he replied.
“You slapped my face once.” Hare leaned close to the rancher. “Slap it
now--you rustler!”
In the slow, guarded instant when Hare's gaze held Holderness and the
other men, a low murmuring ran through the room.
“Dene's spy!” suddenly burst out Holderness.
Hare slapped his face. Then he backed a few paces with his right arm
held before him almost as high as his shoulder, the wrist rigid, the
fingers quivering.
“Don't try to draw, Holderness. Thet's August Naab's trick with a gun,”
whispered a man, hurriedly.
“Holderness, I made a bonfire over at Seeping Springs,” said Hare. “I
burned the new corrals your men built, and I tracked them to your ranch.
Snood threw up his job when he heard it. He's an honest man, and no
honest man will work for a water-thief, a cattle-rustler, a sheep-
killer. You're shown up, Holderness. Leave the country before some one
kills you--understand, before some one kills you!”
Holderness stood motionless against the bar, his eyes fierce with
passionate hate.
Hare backed step by step to the outside door, his right hand still high,
his look holding the crowd bound to the last instant. Then he slipped
out, scattered the group round Silvermane, and struck hard with the
spurs.
The gray, never before spurred, broke down the road into his old wild
speed.
Men were crossing from the corner of the green square. One, a compact
little fellow, swarthy, his dark hair long and flowing, with jaunty and
alert air, was Dene, the outlaw leader. He stopped, with his companions,
to let the horse cross.
Hare guided the thundering stallion slightly to the left. Silvermane
swerved and in two mighty leaps bore down on the outlaw. Dene saved
himself by quickly leaping aside, but even as he moved Silvermane struck
him with his left fore-leg, sending him into the dust.
At the street corner Hare glanced back. Yelling men were rushing from
the saloon and some of them fired after him. The bullets whistled
harmlessly behind Hare. Then the corner house shut off his view.
Silvermane lengthened out and stretched lower with his white mane flying
and his nose pointed level for the desert.
XI. THE DESERT-HAWK
TOWARD the close of the next day Jack Hare arrived at Seeping Springs. A
pile of gray ashes marked the spot where the trimmed logs had lain.
Round the pool ran a black circle hard packed into the ground by many
hoofs. Even the board flume had been burned to a level with the glancing
sheet of water. Hare was slipping Silvermane's bit to let him drink when
he heard a halloo. Dave Naab galloped out of the cedars, and presently
August Naab and his other sons appeared with a pack-train.
“Now you've played bob!” exclaimed Dave. He swung out of his saddle and
gripped Hare with both hands. “I know what you've done; I know where
you've been. Father will be furious, but don't you care.”
The other Naabs trotted down the slope and lined their horses before the
pool. The sons stared in blank astonishment; the father surveyed the
scene slowly, and then fixed wrathful eyes on Hare.
“What does this mean?” he demanded, with the sonorous roll of his angry
voice.
Hare told all that had happened.
August Naab's gloomy face worked, and his eagle-gaze had in it a strange
far-seeing light; his mind was dwelling upon his mystic power of
revelation.
“I see--I see,” he said haltingly.
“Ki--yi-i-i!” yelled Dave Naab with all the power of his lungs. His head
was back, his mouth wide open, his face red, his neck corded and swollen
with the intensity of his passion.
“Be still--boy!” ordered his father. “Hare, this was madness--but tell
me what you learned.”
Briefly Hare repeated all that he had been told at the Bishop's, and
concluded with the killing of Martin Cole by Dene.
August Naab bowed his head and his giant frame shook under the force of
his emotion. Martin Cole was the last of his life-long friends.
“This--this outlaw--you say you ran him down?” asked Naab, rising
haggard and shaken out of his grief.
“Yes. He didn't recognize me or know what was coming till Silvermane was
on him. But he was quick, and fell sidewise. Silvermane's knee sent him
sprawling.”
“What will it all lead to?” asked August Naab, and in his extremity he
appealed to his eldest son.
“The bars are down,” said Snap Naab, with a click of his long teeth.
“Father,” began Dave Naab earnestly, “Jack has done a splendid thing.
The news will fly over Utah like wildfire. Mormons are slow. They need a
leader. But they can follow and they will. We can't cure these evils by
hoping and praying. We've got to fight!”
“Dave's right, dad, it means fight,” cried George, with his fist
clinched high.
“You've been wrong, father, in holding back,” said Zeke Naab, his lean
jaw bulging. “This Holderness will steal the water and meat out of our
children's mouths. We've got to fight!”
“Let's ride to White Sage,” put in Snap Naab, and the little flecks in
his eyes were dancing. “I'll throw a gun on Dene. I can get to him.
We've been tolerable friends. He's wanted me to join his band. I'll kill
him.”
He laughed as he raised his right hand and swept it down to his left
side; the blue Colt lay on his outstretched palm. Dene's life and
Holderness's, too, hung in the balance between two deadly snaps of this
desert-wolf's teeth. He was one of the Naabs, and yet apart from them,
for neither religion, nor friendship, nor life itself mattered to him.
August Naab's huge bulk shook again, not this time with grief, but in
wrestling effort to withstand the fiery influence of this unholy
fighting spirit among his sons.
“I am forbidden.”
His answer was gentle, but its very gentleness breathed of his battle
over himself, of allegiance to something beyond earthly duty. “We'll
drive the cattle to Silver Cup,” he decided, “and then go home. I give
up Seeping Springs. Perhaps this valley and water will content
Holderness.”
When they reached the oasis Hare was surprised to find that it was the
day before Christmas. The welcome given the long-absent riders was like
a celebration. Much to Hare's disappointment Mescal did not appear; the
homecoming was not joyful to him because it lacked her welcoming smile.
Christmas Day ushered in the short desert winter; ice formed in the
ditches and snow fell, but neither long resisted the reflection of the
sun from the walls. The early morning hours were devoted to religious
services. At midday dinner was served in the big room of August Naab's
cabin. At one end was a stone fireplace where logs blazed and crackled.
In all his days Hare had never seen such a bountiful board. Yet he was
unable to appreciate it, to share in the general thanksgiving.
Dominating all other feeling was the fear that Mescal would come in and
take a seat by Snap Naab's side. When Snap seated himself opposite with
his pale little wife Hare found himself waiting for Mescal with an
intensity that made him dead to all else. The girls, Judith, Esther,
Rebecca, came running gayly in, clad in their best dresses, with bright
ribbons to honor the occasion. Rebecca took the seat beside Snap, and
Hare gulped with a hard contraction of his throat. Mescal was not yet a
Mormon's wife! He seemed to be lifted upward, to grow light-headed with
the blessed assurance. Then Mescal entered and took the seat next to
him. She smiled and spoke, and the blood beat thick in his ears.
That moment was happy, but it was as nothing to its successor. Under the
table-cover Mescal's hand found his, and pressed it daringly and gladly.
Her hand lingered in his all the time August Naab spent in carving the
turkey--lingered there even though Snap Naab's hawk eyes were never far
away. In the warm touch of her hand, in some subtle thing that radiated
from her Hare felt a change in the girl he loved. A few months had
wrought in her some indefinable difference, even as they had increased
his love to its full volume and depth. Had his absence brought her to
the realization of her woman's heart?
In the afternoon Hare left the house and spent a little while with
Silvermane; then he wandered along the wall to the head of the oasis,
and found a seat on the fence. The next few weeks presented to him a
situation that would be difficult to endure. He would be near Mescal,
but only to have the truth forced cruelly home to him every sane moment-
-that she was not for him. Out on the ranges he had abandoned himself to
dreams of her; they had been beautiful; they had made the long hours
seem like minutes; but they had forged chains that could not be broken,
and now he was hopelessly fettered.
The clatter of hoofs roused him from a reverie which was half sad, half
sweet. Mescal came tearing down the level on Black Bolly. She pulled in
the mustang and halted beside Hare to hold out shyly a red scarf
embroidered with Navajo symbols in white and red beads.
“I've wanted a chance to give you this,” she said, “a little Christmas
present.”
For a few seconds Hare could find no words.
“Did you make it for me, Mescal?” he finally asked. “How good of you!
I'll keep it always.”
“Put it on now--let me tie it--there!”
“But, child. Suppose he--they saw it?”
“I don't care who sees it.”
She met him with clear, level eyes. Her curt, crisp speech was full of
meaning. He looked long at her, with a yearning denied for many a day.
Her face was the same, yet wonderfully changed; the same in line and
color, but different in soul and spirit. The old sombre shadow lay deep
in the eyes, but to it had been added gleam of will and reflection of
thought. The whole face had been refined and transformed.
“Mescal! What's happened? You're not the same. You seem almost happy.
Have you--has he--given you up?”
“Don't you know Mormons better than that? The thing is the same--so far
as they're concerned.”
“But Mescal--are you going to marry him? For God's sake, tell me.”
“Never.” It was a woman's word, instant, inflexible, desperate. With a
deep breath Hare realized where the girl had changed.
“Still you're promised, pledged to him! How'll you get out of it?”
“I don't know how. But I'll cut out my tongue, and be dumb as my poor
peon before I'll speak the word that'll make me Snap Naab's wife.”
There was a long silence. Mescal smoothed out Bolly's mane, and Hare
gazed up at the walls with eyes that did not see them.
Presently he spoke. “I'm afraid for you. Snap watched us to-day at
dinner.”
“He's jealous.”
“Suppose he sees this scarf?”
Mescal laughed defiantly. It was bewildering for Hare to hear her.
“He'll--Mescal, I may yet come to this.” Hare's laugh echoed Mescal's as
he pointed to the enclosure under the wall, where the graves showed bare
and rough.
Her warm color fled, but it flooded back, rich, mantling brow and cheek
and neck.
“Snap Naab will never kill you,” she said impulsively.
“Mescal.”
She swiftly turned her face away as his hand closed on hers.
“Mescal, do you love me?”
The trembling of her fingers and the heaving of her bosom lent his hope
conviction. “Mescal,” he went on, “these past months have been years,
years of toiling, thinking, changing, but always loving. I'm not the man
you knew. I'm wild-- I'm starved for a sight of you. I love you! Mescal,
my desert flower!”
She raised her free hand to his shoulder and swayed toward him. He held
her a moment, clasped tight, and then released her.
“I'm quite mad!” he exclaimed, in a passion of self-reproach. “What a
risk I'm putting on you! But I couldn't help it. Look at me-- Just once-
-please-- Mescal, just one look.... Now go.”
The drama of the succeeding days was of absorbing interest. Hare had
liberty; there was little work for him to do save to care for
Silvermane. He tried to hunt foxes in the caves and clefts; he rode up
and down the broad space under the walls; he sought the open desert only
to be driven in by the bitter, biting winds. Then he would return to the
big living-room of the Naabs and sit before the burning logs. This
spacious room was warm, light, pleasant, and was used by every one in
leisure hours. Mescal spent most of her time there. She was engaged upon
a new frock of buckskin, and over this she bent with her needle and
beads. When there was a chance Hare talked with her, speaking one
language with his tongue, a far different one with his eyes. When she
was not present he looked into the glowing red fire and dreamed of her.
In the evenings when Snap came in to his wooing and drew Mescal into a
corner, Hare watched with covert glance and smouldering jealousy.
Somehow he had come to see all things and all people in the desert
glass, and his symbol for Snap Naab was the desert-hawk. Snap's eyes
were as wild and piercing as those of a hawk; his nose and mouth were as
the beak of a hawk; his hands resembled the claws of a hawk; and the
spurs he wore, always bloody, were still more significant of his
ruthless nature. Then Snap's courting of the girl, the cool assurance,
the unhastening ease, were like the slow rise, the sail, and the poise
of a desert-hawk before the downward lightning-swift swoop on his
quarry.