Superstition Pool
Physically tired as they were, the night was a restless one for both
Helen and her father. They ate their meal in silence for the most
part, made their beds close together, picketed their horses near by and
said their listless 'good nights' early. Each heard the other turn and
fidget many times before both went to sleep. Helen saw how her father,
with a fine assumption of careless habit, laid a big new revolver close
to his head.
The girl dozed and woke when the pallid moon shone upon her face. She
lifted herself upon her elbow. The moonlight touched upon the willow
stick she had thrust into the sand at her bedside; the feather was
upright and like a plume. She considered it gravely; it became the
starting-point of many romantic imaginings. Somehow it was a token; of
just exactly what, to be sure, she could not decide. Not definitely,
that is; it was always indisputable that the message of the bluebird is
one of good fortune.
A less vivid imagination than Helen's would have found a tang of
ghostliness in the night. The crest of the ridge over which they had
come through the dusk now showed silvery white; white also were some
dead branches of desert growth--they looked like bones. Always through
the intense silence stirred an indistinguishable breath like a shiver.
Individual bushes assumed grotesque shapes; when she looked long and
intently at one she began to fancy that it moved. She scoffed at
herself, knowing that she was lending aid to tricking her own senses,
yet her heart beat a wee bit faster. She gave her mind to large
considerations: those of infinity, as her eyes were lifted heavenward
and dwelt upon the brightest star; those of life and death, and all of
the mystery of mysteries. She went to sleep struggling with the
ancient problem: 'Do the dead return? Are there, flowing about us,
weird, supernatural influences as potent and intangible as electric
currents?' In her sleep she continued her interesting investigations,
but her dreaming vision explained the evening's problem by showing her
the camp-fire made, the bacon and coffee set thereon, by a very nice
young man with splendid eyes.
She stirred, smiled sleepily, and lay again without moving; after the
fashion of one awakening she clung to the misty frontiers of a fading
dream-country. She breathed deeply, inhaling the freshness of the new
dawn. Then suddenly her eyes flew open, and she sat up with a little
cry; a man who would have fitted well enough into any fancy-free
maiden's dreams was standing close to her side, looking down at her.
Helen's hands flew to her hair.
Plainly--she read that in the first flashing look--he was no less
astounded than she. At the moment he made a picture to fill the eye
and remain in the memory of a girl fresh from an Eastern City. The
tall, rangy form was garbed in the picturesque way of the country; she
took him in from the heels of the black boots with their silver spurs
to the top of his head with its amazingly wide black hat. He stood
against a sky rapidly filling to the warm glow of the morning. His
horse, a rarely perfect creation even in the eyes of one who knew
little of fine breeding in animals, stood just at its master's heels,
with ears pricked forward curiously.
Helen wondered swiftly if he intended to stand there until the sun came
up, just looking at her. Though it was scarcely more than a moment
that he stood thus, in Helen's confusion the time seemed much longer.
She began to grow ill at ease; she felt a quick spurt of irritation.
No doubt she looked a perfect fright, taken all unawares like this, and
equally indisputably he was forming an extremely uncomplimentary
opinion of her. It required less than three seconds for Miss Helen to
decide emphatically that the man was a horrible creature.
But he did not look any such thing. He was healthy and brown and
boyish. He had had a shave and haircut no longer ago than yesterday
and looked neat and clean. His mouth was quite as large as a man's
should be and now was suddenly smiling. At the same instant his hat
came off in his big brown hand and a gleam of downright joyousness
shone in his eyes.
'Impudent beast!' was Helen's quick thought. She had given her mind
last night a great deal less to matters of toilet than to mystic
imaginings; it lay entirely in the field of absurd likelihood that
there was a smear of black across her face.
'My mistake,' grinned the stranger. 'Guess I'll step out while the
stepping's good and the road open. If there's one sure thing a man
ought to be shot for, it's stampeding in on another fellow's honeymoon.
_Adios, señora_.'
'Honeymoon!' gasped Helen. 'The big fool.'
Her father wakened abruptly, sat up, grasping his big revolver in both
hands, and blinked about him; he, too, had had his dreams. In the
night-cap which he had purchased in San Juan, his wide, grave eyes and
sun-blistered face turned up inquiringly; he was worthy of a second
glance as he sat prepared to defend himself and his daughter. The
stranger had just set the toe of his boot into the stirrup; in this
posture he remained, forgetful of his intention to mount, while his
mare began to circle and he had to hop along to keep pace with her, his
eyes upon the startled occupant of the bed beyond Helen's. He had had
barely more than time to note the evident discrepancy in ages which
naturally should have started his mind down a new channel for the
explanation of the true relationship, when the revolver clutched
tightly in unaccustomed fingers went off with an unexpected roar. Dust
spouted up a yard beyond the feet of the man who held it. The horse
plunged, the stranger went up into the saddle like a flash, and the man
dropped his gun to his blanket and muttered in the natural bewilderment
of the moment:
'It--it went off by itself! The most amazing----'
The rider brought his prancing horse back and fought with his facial
muscles for gravity; the light in his eyes was utterly beyond his
control.
'I'd better be going off by myself somewhere,' he remarked as gravely
as he could manage, 'if you're going to start shooting a man up just
because he calls before breakfast.'
With a face grown a sick white, the man in bed looked helplessly from
the stranger to his daughter and then to the gun.
'I didn't do a thing to it,' he began haltingly.
'You won't do a thing to yourself one of these fine days.' remarked the
horseman with evident relish, 'if you don't quit carrying that sort of
life-saver. Come over to the ranch and I'll swap you a hand-axe for
it.'
Helen sniffed audibly and distastefully. Her first impression of the
stranger had been more correct than are first impressions nine times
out of ten; he was as full of impudence as a city sparrow. She had sat
up 'looking like a fright'; her father had made himself ridiculous; the
stranger was mirthfully concerned with the amusing possibilities of
both of them.
Suddenly the tall man, smitten by inspiration, slapped his thigh with
one hand, while with the other he curbed rebellion in his mare and
offered the explosive wager:
'I'll bet a man a dollar I've got your number, friends. You are
Professor James Edward Longstreet and his little daughter Helen! Am I
right?'
'You are correct, sir,' acknowledged the professor a trifle stiffly.
His eye did not rise, but clung in a fascinated, faintly accusing way
to the gun which had betrayed him.
The stranger nodded and then lifted his hat for the ceremony while he
presented himself.
'Name of Howard,' he announced breezily. 'Alan Howard of the old Diaz
Rancho. Glad to know you both.'
'It is a pleasure, I am sure, Mr. Howard,' said the professor. 'But,
if you will pardon me, at this particular time of day----'
Alan Howard laughed his understanding.
'I'll chase up to the pool and give Helen a drink of real water,' he
said lightly. 'Funny my mare's name should be Helen, too, isn't it?'
This directly into a pair of eyes which the growing light showed to be
grey and attractive, but just now hostile. 'Then, if you say the word,
I'll romp back and take you up on a cup of coffee. And we'll talk
things over.'
He stooped forward in the saddle a fraction of an inch; his mare caught
the familiar signal and leaped; they were gone, racing away across the
sand which was flung up after them like spray.
'Of all the fresh propositions!' gasped Helen.
But she knew that he would not long delay his return, and so slipped
quickly from under her blanket and hurried down to the water-hole to
bathe her hands and face and set herself in order. Her flying fingers
found her little mirror; there wasn't any smudge on her face, after
all, and her hair wasn't so terribly unbecoming that way; tousled, to
be sure, but then, nice, curly hair can be tousled and still not make
one a perfect hag. It _was_ odd about his mare being named Helen. He
must have thought the name pretty, for obviously he and his horse were
both intimate and affectionate. 'Alan Howard.' Here, too, was rather
a nice name for a man met by chance out in the desert. She paused in
the act of brushing her hair. Was she to get an explanation of last
night's puzzle? Was Mr. Howard the man who had lighted the other fire?
The professor's taciturnity was of a pronounced order this morning.
Now and then as he made his own brief and customarily untidy toilet, he
turned a look of accusation upon the big Colt lying on his bed. Before
drawing on his boots he bestowed upon his toe a long glance of
affection; the bullet that had passed within a very few inches of this
adjunct of his anatomy had emphasized a toe's importance. He had never
realized how pleasant it was to have two big toes, all one's own and
unmarred. By the time the foot had been coaxed and jammed down into
his new boot the professor's good humour was on the way to being
restored; a man of one thought at the time, due to his long habit of
concentration, his emotion was now one of a subdued rejoicing. It
needed but the morning cup of coffee to set him beaming upon the world.
Alan Howard's sudden call: 'Can I come in now, folks?' from across a
brief space of sand and brush, found Professor Longstreet on his knees
feeding twigs to a tiny blaze, and hastened Helen through the final
touches of her dressing. Helen was humming softly to herself, her back
to him, her mind obviously concentrated upon the bread she was slicing,
when the stranger swung down from his saddle and came forward. He
stood a moment just behind her, looking at her with very evident
interest in his eyes.
'How do you like our part of the world?' he asked friendliwise.
Helen ignored him briefly. Had Mr. Alan Howard been a bashful young
man of the type that reddens and twists its hat in big nervous hands
and looks guilty in general. Miss Helen Longstreet would have been
swiftly all that was sweet and kind to him. Now, however, from some
vague reason or clouded instinct, she was prepared to be as stiff as
the fanged stalk of a cactus. Having ignored him the proper length of
time, she replied coolly:
'Father and I are very much pleased with the desert country. But, may
I ask just why you speak of it as your part of the world rather than
ours? Are we trespassing, pray?' The afterthought was accompanied by
an upflashing look that was little less than outright challenge.
'Trespassing? Lord, no,' conceded Howard heartily. 'The land is wide,
the trail open at both ends. But you know what I meant.'
Helen shrugged and laid aside the half-loaf. Since she gave him no
answer, Howard went on serenely:
'I mean a man sort of acquires a feeling of ownership in the place in
which he has lived a long time. You and your father are Eastern, not
Western. If I came tramping into your neck of the woods--you see I
call it _yours_. Right enough, too, don't you think, professor?'
'In a way of speaking, yes,' answered the professor. 'In another way,
no. We have given up the old haunts and the old way of living. We are
rather inclined, my dear young sir, to look upon this as our country,
too.'
'Bully for you!' cried Howard warmly. 'You're sure welcome.' His eyes
came back from the father to rest upon the daughter's bronze tresses.
'Welcome as a water-hole in a hot land,' he added emphatically.
'Speaking of water-holes,' suggested Longstreet, sitting back upon his
boot heels in a manner to suggest the favourite squatting position of
the cowboys of whom he and his daughter had seen much during these last
few weeks, 'was it you who made camp right over yonder?' He pointed.
Helen looked up curiously for Howard's answer and thus met the eyes he
had not withdrawn from her. He smiled at her, a frank, open sort of
smile, and thereafter turned to his questioner.
'When?' he asked briefly.
'Last night. Just before we came.'
'What makes you think some one made camp there?'
'There was a fire; bacon was frying, coffee boiling.'
'And you didn't step across to take a squint at your next-door
neighbour?'
'We did,' said the professor. 'But he had gone, leaving his fire
burning, his meal cooking.'
Howard's eyes travelled swiftly to Helen, then back to her father.
'And he didn't come back?'
'He did not,' said Longstreet. 'Otherwise I should not have asked if
you were he.'
Even yet Howard gave no direct answer. Instead he turned his back and
strode away to the deserted camp site. Helen watched him through the
bushes and noted how he made a quick but evidently thorough examination
of the spot. She saw him stoop, pick up frying-pan and cup, drop them
and pass around the spring, his eyes on the ground. Abruptly he turned
away and pushed through a clump of bushes, disappearing. In five
minutes he returned, his face thoughtful.
'What time did you get here?' he asked. And when he had his answer he
pondered it a moment before he went on: 'The gent didn't leave his
card. But he broke camp in a regular blue-blazes hurry; saddled his
horse over yonder and struck out the shortest way toward King Cañon.
He went as if the devil himself and his one best bet in hell hounds was
running at his stirrups.'
'How do you know?' queried Longstreet's insatiable curiosity. 'You
didn't see him?'
'You saw the fire and the things he left stewing,' countered Howard.
'They spelled hurry, didn't they? Didn't they shout into your ears
that he was on the lively scamper for some otherwhere?'
'Not necessarily,' maintained Longstreet eagerly. 'Reasoning from
the scant evidence before us, a man would say that while the stranger
may have left his camp to hurry on, he may on the other hand have just
dodged back when he heard us coming and hidden somewhere close by.'
Again Howard pondered briefly.
'There are other signs you did not see,' he said in a moment. 'The
soil where he had his horse staked out shows tracks, and they are the
tracks of a horse going some from the first jump. Horse and man took
the straightest trail and went ripping through a patch of mesquite that
a man would generally go round. Then there's something else. Want to
see?'
They went with him, the professor with alacrity, Helen with a studied
pretence at indifference. By the spring where Helen had found the
willow rod and the bluebird feather, Howard stopped and pointed down.
'There's a set of tracks for you,' he announced triumphantly. 'Suppose
you spell 'em out, professor; what do you make of them?'
The professor studied them gravely. In the end he shook his head.
'Coyote?' he suggested.
Howard shook his head.
'No coyote,' he said with positiveness. 'That track shows a foot four
times as big as any coyote's that ever scratched fleas. Wolf? Maybe.
It would be a whopper of a wolf at that. Look at the size of it, man!
Why, the ugly brute would be big enough to scare my prize shorthorn
bull into taking out life insurance. And that isn't all. That's just
the front foot. Now look at the hind foot. Smaller, longer, and
leaving a lighter imprint. All belonging to the same animal.' He
scratched his head in frank bewilderment. 'It's a new one on me,' he
confessed frankly. Then he chuckled. 'I'd bet a man that the gent who
left on the hasty foot just got one squint at this little beastie and
at that had all sorts of good reasons for streaking out.'
A big lizard went rustling through a pile of dead leaves and all three
of them started. Howard laughed.
'We're right near Superstition Pool!' he informed them with suddenly
assumed gravity. 'Down in Poco Poco they tell some great tales about
the old Indian gods going man-hunting by moonlight. _Quién sabe_, huh?'
Professor Longstreet snorted. Helen cast a quick, interested look at
the stranger and one of near triumph upon her father.
'I smell somebody's coffee boiling,' said the cattleman abruptly. 'Am
I invited in for a cup? Or shall I mosey on? Don't be bashful in
saying I'm not wanted if I'm not.'
'Of course you are welcome,' said Longstreet heartily. But Howard
turned to Helen and waited for her to speak.
'Of course.' said Helen carelessly.