CHAPTER I

THE WELL IN THE DESERT

BY

ADELINE KNAPP

[Illustration]

NEW YORK

THE CENTURY CO.

1908

Copyright, 1908, by

THE CENTURY CO.

_Published August, 1908_

All rights reserved

THE DE VINNE PRESS

TO

A. L. C.

IN MEMORY OF DESERT DAYS

AND GREEN PASTURES

BOOK ONE

THE VALLEY OF BACA

THE WELL IN THE DESERT

CHAPTER I

Blue Gulch was relaxing after the ardors of its working-day. From the

direction of the Cheerful Heart Dance Hall issued sounds of mirth and

festivity, and a weaving fantasy of shadows on its canvas walls

proclaimed to those without that the cheerful hearts were in executive

session.

A man coming furtively along Upper Broadway made a detour to avoid the

bar of light that shone through the open door of the hall. He passed

behind the building, and around the big fandango, where the trip of feet

mingled with the tinkle of a guitar and the whirr and thump of a wheel

of fortune.

“It can’t be anywhere along here,” he muttered, coming back to the road

and pausing to survey the starlit scene.

Blue Gulch had but one street, the two sides of which lay at different

levels, separated by the wide yawn of the gulch itself, thrusting into

the mountain from the desert below. From where the man stood he

commanded a very complete view of the place. In nearly every house was a

light, and the shadows thrown upon the canvas walls gave a fair clue to

the occupations of those within; so that during the early part of each

evening at least neither half of the town need be in any doubt as to how

the other half was living.

The life and gaiety of the community in relaxation seemed to gather upon

the upper plane. Across the gulch Lower Broadway lay in comparative

darkness.

The man drew back again as a couple of shadowy forms came wavering down

the road. One of these carried a lantern, which hung low at his side,

revealing the heavy miners’ boots of the pair, and casting grotesque

shadows up the mountain-side.

“Where’s Westcott? Why ain’t he along?” one asked, as they passed.

The skulking figure in the shadow strained his ears to listen, one hand

pressed upon his mouth to keep back the cough that would have betrayed

him.

“He’s back at his office, digging,” was the careless response. “Westcott

ain’t a very cheerful cuss.”

The two laughed lightly, and disappeared within the dance-hall.

When they were out of sight the man came forth again, hurrying past the

glowing windows of the Red Light Saloon, stopping beyond it to muffle

with his shapeless hat the cough that took toll of his strength. He

leaned panting against a boulder, waiting to regain his breath.

The way was more dimly lighted now. He was nearing the civic center of

the place, the one bit of level ground in the gulch. Here, a faint light

showing from one window, was the mining company’s hospital. Beyond this

the man passed a big, barn-like structure of wood, that announced

itself, by a huge, white-lettered sign, showing faintly in the

starlight, as an eating-house. Next it was the low adobe hotel of the

place, and farther on, beyond a dark gap, was a small building, boasting

a door and two windows in its narrow front.

The visitor regarded this place consideringly. He thought it more than

likely that it was what he sought. Light streamed from both windows and,

stepping close, the prowler looked within.

What he saw was a man writing at a rough pine desk. The room was not

large. One or two chairs, a couch, and some rude shelves, where a few

law books leaned; a small earthen-ware stove, now glowing with heat,

completed its furnishings. The watcher’s eyes yearned to that stove. He

was shivering in the chill autumn night, and he wore no coat. With a

muttered curse he opened the door and stepped quickly into the room.

The man inside looked up from his writing, peering past the lamp the

better to see his visitor. For a moment he stared, incredulous, then, as

recognition was confirmed, he softly slid a hand toward one drawer of

his desk. The new-comer noted the movement.

“You can stow that,” he snarled, scornfully, “I haven’t got any gun.”

The other’s fingers had already closed upon the handle of a revolver

that lay in the drawer. With the weapon in his hand he crossed quickly,

from one window to the other, and carefully pulled down the shades. The

intruder had stepped into the full glare of the lamp, and now bent

forward, his hands upon the desk.

As he stood thus, gaunt, haggard, panting, he seemed little calculated

to awaken fear. The hands that clutched the table’s edge were trembling

and emaciated, and of a curious, waxy pallor. This same pallor was in

his drawn, sunken face, and from out the death-like mask of its

whiteness the man’s deep-set eyes gazed, heavy with despair.

“I haven’t got any gun, Westcott,” he repeated. “You needn’t be afraid.

You played a damned, dirty trick on me, three years ago, but that’s all

done with. I ain’t here to throw it up against you; but I want you to do

me a favor.”

The lawyer had turned the key in the lock and stood near the door,

watching him intently, noting the close-cropped head, the thin, pallid

face, the nondescript garments of the wayfarer.

“You managed to escape,” he finally said, slowly.

“Yes, I did.” The man coughed, clutching the table for support.

“I got away last week,” he explained, panting. “Yes—and I stole the

clothes,” with a glance at the sleeves of his rough gray shirt. “I’m a

thief, now, just like you, Westcott.”

The other made an inarticulate sound in his throat.

“We’ll let all that pass,” the intruder said, with a toss of one gaunt

hand. “I’m up to no harm, but I’ve got to have help. I’ve got out of

that hell you left me in at Phoenix; but it won’t do me any good. I’m

dying!”

Another fit of coughing shook him, until he reeled. Westcott pushed a

chair toward him and he sank into it, still gripping the table.

“I’m dying,” he said again, when the cough had spent itself, “and I want

to get back and die in God’s country.”

Westcott sat down opposite him, still watching him, intently.

“I can’t walk back,” the man went on, “and I ain’t fit to beat it back.

You’re welcome to the fifteen hundred you got off me; but can’t you—for

the love of God, _won’t_ you—give me the price of a ticket back to

Iowa?”

His dull, sunken eyes were akindle, and he leaned forward, an agony of

eagerness in his eyes. The prison-born look of age fell from him for the

moment and it became apparent that he was not only a young man, but must

once have been a comely one, with a powerful frame.

“I heard you were attorney for the Company here,” he went on, as

Westcott still kept silent. “You ought to be able to do that for me. You

had fifteen hundred of mine.”

The attorney flinched, ever so slightly, then he rose, dropping the

revolver into his coat-pocket, and took a turn about the room.

“I—I wasn’t such a beast as it looks,” he finally said, speaking with

difficulty. “I’ve been ashamed of myself: I meant to stay and try to

clear you. I don’t know how I came to do it; but Jim Texas swore’t was

you; and I lost the money playing faro at Randy Melone’s.”

The brief glow in the sunken eyes had burned itself out. The man

surveyed Westcott, apparently without interest.

“Jim Texas lied,” he said, apathetically, “and now _you’re_ lying. You

paid some of that money to Raoul Marty for a horse; and you got away

with most of the rest of it in your clothes. You can hear things, even

in jail.” This was said with a weary laugh, in which was no mirth.

“You don’t always hear ’em straight,” the attorney replied, with studied

gentleness.

“I _was_ ashamed, Barker,” he went on, quickly. “I’ve been sorry ever

since.”

“Then you’ll give me the price of a ticket?” Hope gleamed again, in the

dull eyes. Westcott considered.

“I haven’t got the money here,” he mused; “but I think I can raise some

by to-morrow. How would you get down to the railroad?”

“I’ll take care o’ that—” another siege of that racking cough. Barker

leaned back in his chair, faint and gasping. Westcott drew a flask and

poured some of its contents into a tin cup. The other drained it,

eagerly.

“That’ll help,” he murmured, handing back the cup. “I ain’t always so

weak as this; but I’ve been hitting the trail for a week, without much

grub.”

“Did anyone see you come in?” Westcott asked, with apparent irrelevance.

“No. I kept out of sight.”

“Good!” The other nodded. “That’s what you’ll have to keep doing.”

“I’ve got to go out and see what I can do about that money,” he

continued; “and you’ve got to have something to eat. I guess I’ll have

to lock you in here while I’m gone, in case anyone should come along.

You needn’t be afraid but that I’ll come back,” he added, as the other

looked up, in quick suspicion. “It’s safer so, and I want you to have

something to eat.”

“I sure need it,” was the reply. “Mighty bad.”

“I know you do; I’ll bring it soon’s I can.” Westcott moved toward the

door. “You lay low till I get back.”

“You’re not going back on me?” Barker still studied him.

“Going back on you?” Westcott laughed, shortly.

“Lord!” he exclaimed, “Do you think I didn’t have enough of that?”

He threw some lumps of coal into the little stove. “I’ll have to douse

the glim,” he explained, “since I’ll be out around town, and someone

might wonder who’s here. You can lie down there.”

He waved a hand toward the couch and Barker nodded.

“I’m pegged out,” he said, wearily. “I’ll just sit here by the fire.

Lord! How long is it since I’ve been warm?”

He drew his chair nearer and bent to the glow. Westcott lowered the

light and blew out the flame.

“I’ll lock the door on the outside,” he said, “And don’t you worry,

Barker: I’ll take care of you. Just trust me.”

“I guess I’ve got to trust you,” was the helpless reply, “I can’t do

anything else.” And Westcott stepped out into the night, locking the

door behind him.

Once outside he walked along the plaza to the head of the gulch and

stood looking down upon the town. The varied sounds of a mining

settlement at night came plainly to his ears. A new dancer from over the

border was making her first appearance at Garvanza’s that evening, and

the Mexicans were gathered in force. There was a crowd of miners in the

Red Light Saloon. He could hear their voices.

“How I hate it all,” he muttered. “I wish I was out of it!”

The post-office was on Lower Broadway in the Company’s store, where a

single light burned, dimly. Farther down was the school-house, where the

school-teacher labored by day, with the half-dozen white children of the

town, and twice as many young Papegoes. Behind the gulch, climbing

heavenward, verdureless, copper-ribbed, austere, lay the mountain, where

the mines were.

Westcott had been in Blue Gulch for more than a year. He had drifted out

of Phoenix after the Barker affair, glad to get away, where he was sure

no one knew of the matter.

There had been no question about Barker’s guilt. Jim Texas swore to

having seen him knife Lundy. He couldn’t have saved him if he had

stayed, Westcott told himself. He had never understood why they had not

hung the fellow, instead of sentencing him for life.

“Better have done it outright than to kill him by inches in their hell

of a jail,” he thought.

But now what was to be done with the man? Westcott stood scowling at a

house down the gulch. There was a light inside that threw upon the

canvas side-wall the gigantic figure of a woman, coughing. It reminded

him unpleasantly of Barker.

“Damn the fellow,” he muttered. “Wha’d he come up here for, anyway?

He’ll never live to get back east.” He walked on, turning up the collar

of his coat. “It’s coming winter. The cold’ll kill him.”

Again he stood pondering, while one by one the lights down the gulch

went out. Then he bethought himself of his errand and went stumbling

down Lower Broadway in the dark.

The storekeeper was just closing up, but the young fellow turned back to

wait upon him.

“I won’t keep you more’n a minute, Farthing,” he said, and proceeded to

buy bread and cheese, a tin of meat and a couple of bottles of beer. A

little package of tea was an after-thought.

“Going prospecting, Mr. Westcott?” the clerk asked, as he made up the

packages.

“Maybe,” was the reply.

Westcott was at the door as he spoke. Young Farthing was putting out the

light.

“Oh, Johnnie,” the attorney said, with the air of just remembering, “I

want to telephone ... ‘long distance.’ I’m afraid it’ll take some time.”

He half hesitated.

The boy looked disappointed; he had planned to get over to the fandango

in time to see the new dancer. He spoke cheerfully however.

“That’s all right, Mr. Westcott,” he said, and turned up the lamp again.

“Why can’t I lock up, Johnnie?” Westcott asked; “I’ll bring the key up

to the hotel when I come.”

“If you wouldn’t mind—” Farthing looked relieved, “Everything’s all

right but just turning out the light,” he added.

“All right.” Westcott gave him a little push; “You go on,” he said,

cordially; “I can lock the door as hard as you!”

“I guess that’s true, Mr. Westcott,” the boy laughed, and with a

relieved “good-night,” he departed, as Westcott was turning toward the

telephone-booth.

Half an hour later the attorney was in his own office, boiling water in

a tin pail, on top of the little stove, while Barker, warmed and

cheered, made great inroads upon the bread and cheese and the tinned

meat. Presently Westcott made tea in the pail.

“Seems like old prospecting days, don’t it?” he said with ostentatious

cheerfulness, as he filled the tin cup. “I dare say you’ve had your

share of them?”

“Some.... A-a-h!” Barker drank, blissfully, of the strong, scalding

brew.

“I located a good claim once,” he said, setting down the cup. “But it

was jumped. All I ever got was—”

He paused, in some embarrassment, and changed the subject. “Great stuff,

that tea,” he said, and Westcott refilled the tin cup.

“I’ve done better for you than I hoped to,” he volunteered presently. “I

couldn’t raise the money in the town—too near pay-day; but I got a pal

of mine on the ’phone. He can let me have the cash, and I’ll get it

to-morrow. Don’t you worry, Barker.” He answered the question, in the

other’s eyes, “I’m looking out for you all right. You don’t need to

worry.”

“I’m a pretty sick man,” Barker answered, his white face flushing. “I

know I’m done for; but I want to die in the open.”

“Don’t you talk about dying.” Westcott went about the place making it

secure for the night. “You’ll be snug as can be here,” he added, “By

seven o’clock to-morrow morning this town’ll be practically empty. All

the men’ll be at the mine. Sime’s going down to the plain to meet the

stage, and the school-teacher’ll be busy. We’ll get you off in good

shape.”

He took some papers from the desk and put them in his pocket.

“I wouldn’t show myself, though,” he said. “Keep the curtains down, and

lay low. Lock the door after me, and take out the key.”

At the last words the man’s look of anxiety vanished.

“All right,” he replied. “I’ll sure lay low. I haven’t slept much in a

week. I’ll be glad enough to take the chance.”

“So long, then,” Westcott said, slipping out.

“So long,” and the key turned in the lock.

CHAPTER II

Having secured the door, Barker took the key from the lock and hung his

hat upon the knob.

“Don’t want anyone peeking in,” he murmured, as he resumed his seat by

the fire. He was no longer cold, but there was companionship in its

glow.

The meager little office was a palace compared with the cell from which

he had escaped, he thought as he looked about him in the dim light from

the open door of the stove.

“If he plays me any more tricks—” His mind reverted to Westcott, and the

cold sweat stood upon his forehead at the idea of possible treachery.

“Pshaw!” he muttered. “There’s nothing more he can do. He’s done it all.

God! To think I swore to kill him at sight, and here I am begging favors

of him.”

The angry snarl in his voice changed to a cough, and ended in a whimper.

“I couldn’t do anything else,” he pleaded, as though arguing with

someone. “I want to get back east. I want to die in the open. Hell! I

was going mad in that hole.”

He rested his head between his fists, torturing himself with memories of

the days before he crossed the Divide, the youngest chain-man in the

surveyors’ gang of a projected new railroad. He had come from Iowa, and

boy-like he sang the praises of his native state all across the alkali

plains, until, in derision, his fellows dubbed him “the Iowa barker.”

The name stuck. In Nevada he was plain “Barker.” The others seemed to

have forgotten his real name, and as Barker, when he left the outfit, he

drifted down into Arizona. He blessed the easy transition when the

trouble came that fixed the killing of big Dan Lundy on him. He had kept

his real name secret through all that came after.

What had it all been about? What was he doing here to-night? Why hadn’t

he killed Westcott, instead of sitting here by his fire?

He passed a wavering hand before his eyes. Oh, yes. Now he remembered.

Westcott was going to send him east—to God’s country. Meanwhile, he was

dead for sleep. He caught himself, as he lurched in his chair, and

rising heavily, he threw himself upon the couch.

It was past noon when he woke. The sun lighted the yellow curtains; the

door stood open, and Westcott bent over him, shaking him by the

shoulder.

“Barker! Barker!” the attorney called.

“Barker! Wake up! Time to get out of this. I’ve got a chance to send you

down to the railroad.”

By degrees he struggled to consciousness, and sat up. Westcott had

brought him a big cup of steaming coffee.

“Drink this,” he said, not unkindly.

“My friend came up with the money,” he went on, as Barker drank, sitting

sidewise on the couch. “He’s going to take you down in his buggy. He’ll

fix you up all right.”

Barker was still dazed with sleep. His ears rang, and the lawyer’s voice

sounded strange and far away. The coffee made him feel better. It

soothed the cough that had racked him the moment he sat up.

“Now eat some grub,” Westcott said.

He had brought food from the hotel. Barker was still too far off to

wonder at this. He had no desire for food, but he ate, obediently.

Westcott, meantime, had gone outside. In front of the hotel stood a big,

rangy bay horse, hitched to a light road-wagon. Near the outfit lounged

a tall, determined-looking man, who came forward when he saw the

attorney.

“I’ve got to be getting a move on soon,” he said. “It’ll be late night,

as ’tis, before we get there.”

“He’ll be ready in the shake of a horn,” the other replied.

“Say, Frank,” he continued. “He don’t know who you are. I’ve let on

you’re a friend of mine, going to take him down. Let him think that till

you get out of town.”

“Must be a dead easy one,” the man addressed as Frank said.

“Well, you see,” Westcott laughed, nervously, “I doped him pretty well

last night—the poor devil coughed so,” he added, in explanation, and the

deputy sheriff gave a grunt that might mean anything. It brought a flush

of embarrassment to Westcott’s face.

“Come on,” he said, shortly, turning toward his office. The deputy

climbed into his buggy and drove after him.

“Got to hurry, Barker,” Westcott called, opening the door.

He escorted his charge briskly outside.

“This is Mr. Arnold,” he mumbled, beside the wagon. “A friend of mine

that’ll see you fixed all right.”

The man holding the reins scrutinized Barker closely as the latter

climbed up beside him.

“All right,” he decided, finally, speaking to Westcott, and handed the

attorney a folded paper.

“That’s what you were after,” he said, briefly. “So long.”

A word to the bay colt and they were swinging down Upper Broadway at a

pace that made Barker catch his breath as he noted the narrow road, and

the steep cañon-side.

“It’d sure be a long fall,” his companion said, answering his look, “But

we ain’t goin’ to take it. You can bank on the colt. He’s sure-footed as

a deer.”

“I ain’t afraid,” Barker responded. The fresh, sweet air was beginning

to clear his brain and he sat up straighter, a touch of color coming

into his death-like face. The other man avoided his glance, giving all

his attention to the colt, who was swiftly putting distance between them

and the town. The exigencies of the steep, rough road made such

attention necessary and neither man spoke again until they had traversed

the narrow pass, and were out of the gulch. A sudden turn of the way

brought them among the foothills, the broad, yellow expanse of

cactus-dotted plain before them.

“Doesn’t seem as far as it did when I footed it in last night,” Barker

said at last, with an attempt to smile, and Arnold nodded. The bay colt

was a good traveler, and they were on the level now, following the road

that wound its spiritless, grey way among the cacti. The colt took it in

long, free strides, that promised to get them somewhere by daylight.

“Good horse you got there,” Barker said, with a country-bred man’s

interest in animals. “Mighty good shoulders.”

“You bet!” was the deputy’s hearty response. “Good for all day, too.”

“I raised him myself,” he went on, “and he’s standard bred, too,

Daystar, out’n an Alcantara mare.” He spoke with proper pride, as the

owner of a good horse may.

“They raise some fine stock back in Iowa,” Barker remarked, and his

companion’s fount of speech seemed suddenly to run dry. Barker waited,

expectant, for some little time.

“Where are we going to hit the railroad?” He asked, at last.

“The railroad?” Arnold looked puzzled.

“Westcott said you’d land me where I could get the train east,” the

other explained. “He said you had the price of a ticket for me. It’s all

on the level, ain’t it?” he demanded, his voice going higher.

“Oh—Oh! yes, yes! It’s all fixed. Don’t you worry none.” The bronze of

the deputy’s face crimsoned.

“Don’t you worry none,” he repeated, with a glance at the sky.

An ominous cloud lowered, overhead. The sun was hidden, and the air had

grown chill. A fit of coughing had followed Barker’s flash of

excitement, and he crouched in his seat, shivering slightly.

“Look here,” Arnold exclaimed, “you ain’t dressed warm enough. They’s

some kind of weather breeding.”

He reached beneath the wagon-seat and pulled forth his own coat.

“Put this on,” he directed. “I’ve got my sweater on, and don’t need it.”

Barker pushed it back.

“I’m all right,” he said. “You’ll need that yourself.”

“You do what I tell you,” the deputy insisted. “Put it over your

shoulders. The wind’s at your back.”

He thrust the garment across his companion’s wasted shoulders and Barker

drew the sleeves across his chest.

As he did so his hand touched something hard, under one lapel. He

glanced down at it, and started.

“What’s that?” he cried, turning the metal badge up for closer

inspection.

A groan of horror escaped him as he recognized the object.

He sprang to his feet, his long, gaunt hands reaching for the deputy’s

throat. Arnold swept him back with one motion of his powerful arm.

“Don’t you do anything like that,” he said, with rough kindness. “You’d

be just a skeeter if I took hold of you, and I don’t want to. Suffering

snakes!” he pleaded, “Don’t look like that! I’m sorry, man; by Heaven,

I’ve hated this job like blue poison, ever since I laid eyes on you.”

The words died away in his throat before the dumb misery in the other

man’s face. The wasted figure was slumped forward in an abandon of

despair. All the man’s pride and courage died in the face of his fearful

disappointment.

“Oh, God! Oh, God!” he moaned. “And I thought I was going to die in the

open.”

He turned to the deputy, a sudden hope lighting his woe.

“Let me get out,” he begged. “Let me get out right here. I can’t get

anywheres: I’m bound to die; but it’ll be out in the open. Please let me

out.”

“I can’t.” The words came through Arnold’s set teeth.

“Why not? I never killed Dan Lundy. Before God, I never laid a finger on

him.” Barker spoke fast and thick, in his eagerness.

“I went to his shack and found him there, knifed to death. And Jim Texas

swore he saw me do it. Swore it, mind you; when Hart Dowling and I both

knew Texas had threatened Lundy time and again.”

A fit of coughing interrupted him, but he went on as soon as he could,

his hoarse voice breaking now and then.

“And Westcott came sneaking ’round to see what there was in it for him.

He was just starting in then, and I’d heard he was a smart fellow. I

told him of the fifteen hundred dollars dust I had hid in my shack. He

was to find Dowling. Dowling ’d gone up into Wyoming. Westcott was to

get him down here as a witness. And the damned coyote was to have my

fifteen hundred.”

Again the racking cough, and his voice trailed off in a choking struggle

for breath. He was shrieking when he continued.

“And Westcott took the money! Took it out of my shack, and never came

near me again. Left me to die. They’d ha’ hung me, sure, if some of the

jury hadn’t believed Jim Texas lied.”

The deputy’s face was twisted with pity and shame; the man was so

horribly broken.

“They’s a flask in the pocket o’ that coat,” he said. “Take a pull;

it’ll brace you up.”

“I don’t want it,” Barker snarled. “It chokes me more.”

He had drawn the coat about him, the sleeves tied across his chest.

“And Westcott went back on me this time, too.” He took up the pitiful

tale again. “He couldn’t be satisfied, the devil, with what he’d done.

He had to do it over. But what for? What for? I say? I never did _him_

dirt.”

The deputy gave a start of surprise.

“Why Westcott got—” he began, then pity kept him silent. If Barker had

not guessed he would not tell him.

“Westcott ... hell!” He spat savagely out upon the desert, shaking his

head with pity, as he glanced again at the huddled figure.

“Westcott’s a damned side-winder,” he muttered.

They were descending into an arroyo, once the bed of a creek; dry, now,

for more than a year. The road crossed it, here.

“We’re going to get our weather, quick,” the deputy said, as he noticed

that the bottom of the arroyo held tiny pools of water.

Even as he spoke a little stream came trickling down.

“It’s us for the level! Quick!” he shouted, urging the bay.

In an instant darkness was upon them. A sudden flash of steely blue rent

the sky; almost with it a quick roll of thunder was all about them and a

bellowing rush of water came tearing along the arroyo.

The bay colt squealed with terror, plunging sidewise, heedless of whip

and voice. The deputy tried to turn him back to where the bank sloped,

but already they were sweeping along with the torrent.

“A cloudburst,” Arnold shrieked, and with the words he was wrested from

his seat.

The shafts of the light vehicle snapped short at the gear. The colt,

plunging, open-mouthed, was hurled forward in a fearful somersault, and

went under, just as the wagon and its remaining occupant rolled over and

over, as a boulder might roll, in the churn of maddened water.

It was far into the night when, amid a matted drift, half-way up one

bank of the arroyo, something stirred, faintly. Caught in a web of

debris, and a tangle of mesquite roots that thrust far out from the

soil, a man strove feebly to disentangle his head from a smother of

something that enwrapped it. When at last he partly succeeded he looked

up at the calm stars, lamping the sky in solemn splendor. Below him he

could still hear the rush of water, but above all was peaceful.

Long he lay, more dead than alive, trying to remember what had happened.

By the bright starlight he managed to make out that the body of the

light wagon had caught upon an out-thrust web of mesquite roots. He was

lying on his side in the wagon box, one arm thrust, to the shoulder,

through something that he could not see. About his neck and head was a

tangle of cloth which he made out to be the deputy’s coat, and a long

thong of leather, probably one of the harness reins. This was wound, as

well, about what remained of one of the seat braces.

Slowly, by agonizing degrees, the man began to work himself loose from

the tangle. Then he discovered that the thing binding his shoulder was

the strap of a horse’s nose-bag, and the bag itself. It was caught over

a long, splintered fragment of the reach, which had broken through the

bottom of the wagon box. The bag seemed to be about half full of oats.

Inch by inch he cleared himself, and laying hold upon the mesquite

roots, rose slowly, until he stood up. Every movement was pain, but he

persisted doggedly, climbing little by little up the bank, clinging now

to a root of mesquite, now to a point of rock, pausing for breath, or to

ease the strain upon his tortured muscles. At last he grasped the trunk

of a mesquite and dragged himself out upon the desert, where he fell

helpless upon the sand.

CHAPTER III

The shadowy bulk of distant mountains changed to pale blue as the purple

of night slowly lightened. The stars faded, one by one, and a spectral

moon slipped wearily down the sky. Beyond the scant mesquite fringing

the arroyo the desert lay still and gray, like a leaden sea.

The man woke, and moved slightly, groaning as his wrenched and stiffened

body protested. Consciousness strengthened, and he struggled to his

knees to stare about him. The chill of early morning had him by the

bones, and he shook in its grip. After a little he got to his feet and

tried, painfully, to swing his arms.

Away westward a subtle hint of color crept across the pale sky,

heralding a coming radiance in the east; but it brought no sense of

comfort.

“There’s no one left alive but me,” the man whispered, as his gaze took

in the awful solitude. “No one but me, Gabriel Gard!”

The sound of that name, spoken all unconsciously, made him start, and

look furtively about. The loneliness of the plain had betrayed his

jealously guarded secret. Then his mood changed.

“I’ve a right to die with it, at least,” he muttered. “They can’t steal

that from me. Barker’s dead, already. Gabriel Gard goes next. Hear that,

Gabriel? You go next. Y-a-a-h.... God!”

A sudden agony of pain shook him as he began to cough. Every muscle in

his body was sore. Then, as the racking grew less, he stood transfixed,

staring across the desert.

A crimson glow from the coming sunrise flushed far across the eastern

sky, and coming toward him, touched by its glory, was a figure that his

astonished brain sought to define.

It was no mirage. He knew the marks of that supreme cheat of the desert.

This was no trick of refraction or of reflection. He saw, as a man sees,

this creature silently, steadily drawing near.

It was a strangely familiar shape; vague, uncouth, incredible, it

seemed; yet he recognized it. He recognized the slender, shuffling legs,

the swinging gait, the mis-shapen body, the ungainly, crooked neck and

high held head; but why, in the name of reason, should a camel be coming

to him, out of nowhere?

Nearer and nearer the creature drew, the uncouth form now a wonder of

azure and crimson, as the light became stronger, and still the man

gazed, his bewildered mind refusing to accept the testimony of his eyes.

He was filled with awe. It was true, then, what old prospectors had

lately declared, that this solitary wanderer was still in the desert,

sole survivor of the old Jeff Davis caravan.[1] Old man Dickson, and

again young Bennett, swore they had seen it. Dickson told, indeed, of

having had the creature about his camp for nearly a week.

Footnote 1:

When Jefferson Davis was Secretary of War he imported a caravan of

camels into the desert, to carry supplies for the army. The creatures

stampeded the army mules, whenever they appeared, and the soldiers

took to shooting them, on the sly. In time so many were killed that

not enough remained to form a caravan, so the survivors were turned

loose in the desert. Here they were hunted by tourists, who shot them

for “sport,” until it was supposed that all had perished. It is known

now, however, that one, at least, survives. This solitary one still

wanders about the desert, and the writer knows of more than one

prospector who has encountered it, very recently.

On came the camel, looking neither to the right nor the left, its

shuffling stride getting it over the ground with curious swiftness. When

it was very near it stopped, under the mesquites, and seemed to wait for

the man to approach. Recovered somewhat from his amazement, Gabriel Gard

drew nearer and, reaching out a tentative hand, touched the creature’s

neck.

The animal neither started nor flinched, but began cropping beans from

the mesquite trees, quite as if the man were not there. Gard, noting the

action, became aware that he was himself faint with hunger.

On the desert, where he had thrown it in rising, lay the deputy’s coat,

and tangled with it Gard found his own canteen. He took this as a good

omen.

“I may need you, yet,” he whispered, as he took it up.

In one pocket of the coat was a nickle watch, made fast by a leather

thong, to a buttonhole. Another contained the deputy’s pipe, some loose

tobacco, and a water-tight box, in which were fourteen matches. Gard

counted them, carefully.

He turned to the other side-pocket, with but faint hope that the flask

which he had scorned the day before would be in it yet.

It was there, however, and beside it, in a greasy, crushed packet, a big

beef sandwich. The deputy, accustomed to provide against long rides in

the desert, had secured this before leaving the hotel.

The man ate it eagerly, and took a swallow from the flask. The food, and

the fiery liquor, warmed him, and revived his courage.

In the coat’s inner pocket were papers, a worn memorandum book, an

envelop covered with figures, another, longer one, containing a

document. As Gard turned them over a postal-card fell to the desert.

He picked it up. On the back were a picture, and some printing. The man

read the latter through before he realized what the card was for. It

published his escape from jail, and the fact that five hundred dollars

reward was offered for his capture.

Now he remembered the deputy’s unfinished sentence, and knew why

Westcott had betrayed him.

Westcott had got that reward! He had sold him back to death as he had

sold him before. God! Why could he not have had his fingers upon that

lying throat just once? He would have found strength for the job that

needed doing!

He stretched forth his wasted, jail-bleached hands, and regarded them,

snarling. Then he raised them, shaking them at the sky.

“I’ll live to do it yet! Do you hear?” he shrieked, “I say I _will_

live!”

He beat the desert air with his clenched fists.

“God—devil—whatever you are that runs this hellish world, you’ve got to

let me live. I’ll make that infernal side-winder wish he could hide in

hell’s mouth, before I die!”

The torrent of his rage was stemmed by a vicious attack of that racking

cough. It tore his chest, and flecked his lips with blood. When it was

over he lay upon the sand for a long time, sobbing the dry, anguished

sobs of a man’s helpless woe.

The sun, rising above the distant mountains, shone red upon him. The

camel left the mesquite’s thin shade for the warmer light and the pad of

its soft feet aroused Gard. He must not let the creature get away.

He rose, painfully, and went to it, considering the brute carefully. A

plan was dawning in his brain. He took the strap that served him for a

belt, and buckled it around the camel’s neck. The animal followed him,

docile as a sheep, when he led it back to the mesquite. Then he

bethought himself of the oats, in the horse’s bag, below.

Going to the edge of the arroyo he could see it in the wreck of the

road-wagon, and he made his way painfully down to it. As he was

clambering back he noticed that the back spring of the light rig still

clung to it by a single bolt. A slight wrench brought it away, and he

secured it, with a vague feeling that it might prove useful.

The full horror of his position was becoming clear to him. He was alone

in the desert, without food or weapons. He put the thought away,

summoning all his faculties for the need of the moment.

The camel was indifferent to the oats, turning from them to the

mesquite, after a tentative investigation. With his belt and the harness

rein, Gard proceeded to fashion a sort of rude hackamore, which he put

over the creature’s head. The great beast, as soon as it was adjusted,

settled itself, as by instinct, in an attitude of waiting, while Gard

proceeded to fill his canteen and to gather quantities of mesquite

beans, bestowing them in the feed bag, and in the pockets of Arnold’s

coat.

He threw the coat across the camel’s back, the buggy-spring and the bag

secured by its knotted sleeves. Then he took the leading strap in his

hand, spoke to the animal, and they moved out upon the desert.

Gard had no idea in which direction it was best to go, but he argued

that the camel knew the plain, and its fastnesses. For himself, he had

but one thought—to hide, to rest, to gather strength for vengeance. At

that thought he stifled the cough that rose in his throat.

Once they were started he let the strap hang loose and gradually fell

behind. The camel went forward a few paces in the direction ahead of

them, but feeling no guidance, gradually deflected its course toward the

west. Gard followed every movement eagerly, until presently they were

going forward at a steady pace, as travelers with a definite aim.

The sun was well up now, and its beams warmed the man’s chilled, sore

body. The desert was no longer gray, but a glowing yellow. Even the air

was warm-hued, suffusing the landscape with a roseate loveliness that

yet seemed less of life than of death.

Everywhere were the desert growths, travesties of vegetation, twisted,

grotesque, ghostly gray and pale green in hues. A profound stillness,

insistent, oppressive, was upon everything. The yellow sand, the glowing

air, the cloudless dome of the sky, the far-off mountains, all seemed to

soak up sound. The world lay hushed in fierce, tense quiet, as though

waiting the appearance of some savage portent.

The camel did not hasten. Gard, walking beside it, had a feeling that

the creature was very old. Its eyes were bright, its coat silky and

fine, but deep under the hair’s soft luxuriance the man’s fingers felt

the skin, wrinkled and folded over shrunken muscles.

But there was neither feebleness nor hesitation in the forward progress

of the desert pilot. It moved forward with a sort of inexorableness, its

padded feet making no sound on the hard sand, its gaze bent steadily

ahead, its inscrutable visage wearing ever, a look of centuries-old

scorn for all things made.

They passed a huge bull-snake sunning upon a rock, and here and there a

silent bird flitted to or from its home in some thorn-guarded cholla.

Once a coyote tossed lightly across their vision, a blown gray feather

along the horizon, but no other signs of animal life stirred the

death-like plain.

The sand grew warmer in the sun’s rays, till permeating heat radiated

from it and hung over it everywhere, a palpable, shimmering mist of

lavender and gold, between earth and air. By mid-forenoon the sun’s rays

were oppressive, and they halted in the shadow of a giant suhuaro.

The camel, when the man released the leading-strap, lowered itself

slowly to rest, doubling down its legs like the shutting of a

jack-knife, and settling upon the sand with the curious, sighing grunt

of old age.

Gard, in the meantime, set about the preparation of a meal. He shelled a

handful of tree beans and crushed them between two stones, mixing them

with water from his canteen into a sort of paste, which he ate. The

suhuaro’s fruit was yet hanging upon its great branches, dried,

somewhat, by the autumn sun and wind, but palatable and nutritious

still. Gard found a long pole, once part of the frame of another giant

cactus, and with this succeeded in knocking down some of the fig-like

growths.

When he had eaten them he stretched himself upon the sand, filled the

deputy’s pipe, and lighted it with one of the precious matches. The

unwonted luxury brought him comfort, and ease of mind. He smoked slowly,

making the most of it in delicious relaxation, his head in the shade,

his weary, sick body basking in the heat of desert and sunlight.

Lying thus there presently spread out before his eyes the sudden vision

of a great, island-dotted sea. The surface of the water dimpled and

sparkled in the sun; the islands shone jewel-like with verdure, an

exquisite suggestion of rich color was over it all.

His eye was not deceived, though his mind half accepted the vision. He

knew that it was a mirage, but he lay for a long time watching its

changing beauty, a half-amused sense of superiority to illusion

ministering pleasantly to his pride. The scene was so very like what it

seemed to be.

Suddenly, from the surface of the sea rose a monstrous thing, huge,

formidable, portentous, and endowed with motion. Gard turned upon his

side, with a gasp. The mystic sea still wavered in the distance, but the

shape was no part of it.

An instant he studied it, then sank back with a sigh of relief. The

apparition, upon scrutiny, had resolved itself into a little wild burro,

perhaps a quarter of a mile away, passing across the face of the mirage.

It was such a germane little shape, this familiar of the desert, that he

was cheered by the sight of it. The next instant he noted a tarantula,

hairy, vicious, glaring at him from a tiny eminence of sand.

Acting upon impulse, Gard hurled at it the rounded stone with which he

had crushed the mesquite beans. The missile struck the sand close beside

the tarantula and the huge spider sprang upon it in a frenzy of stupid

ferocity. The man laughed silently, a laugh not good to see.

A shadow floated across the plain, and then another. The man glanced

upward, to see three or four great black forms circling against the

blue.

“You would, eh?” he shrieked, springing to his feet. “Yah! Not yet, you

devils! I’m not dead yet!”

He shook his fist skyward at the huge, waiting birds.

“I’m alive yet!” he yelled. “You don’t get me yet; not till I’ve had

_my_ meat.”

The cough seized him, and ere it let go its hold the disappointed

vultures, with never a stroke of their wide wings, faded into the skyey

depths.

But Gard had no heart to linger further. The sight of the desert

scavengers had shaken him sorely, he hastened to rouse his strange

fellow, and soon the pair were again threading that weary way from

nowhere to the unknown.

All day they had moved steadily mountainward, and now they began to draw

nearer the range that ever since dawn had reared a jagged line along the

horizon. Gard had not known whether they would reach the mountains that

day. One does not predicate distances in the desert. They may be long,

or short; the lying air gives no clue.

But as the afternoon shadows were turning to mauve and blue, what had

for hours looked like sloping foothills, leading gently toward further

heights, suddenly reared itself before them in a long stretch of high,

perpendicular wall.

Straight toward it the camel went, never pausing or looking around at

the man beside him, and when another forward step would have found their

progress barred, the creature swerved to the left, to enter a narrow

pass that appeared as if by magic in the seemingly unbroken wall.

Now the way wound upward along a dry wash, climbing almost

imperceptibly, at first, growing steeper, by degrees, though at no time

a sharp ascent. The shadows closed in upon them, and the air grew chill,

but still the camel walked on, and beside him, clinging, now, in his

weakness, to the animal’s long hair, toiled the man.

More and more often he paused for breath, his lungs tortured by the

pace. He was faint with fatigue, chilled by the shadow-cooled air, but a

drink from the flask gave him brief strength, and he struggled on.

An hour, and they were well within the mountains. The way wound now

among greasewood and scrub oaks, with only here and there a cactus. The

chaparral drew dense, and Gard could hear birds calling in its depths.

The trail began to widen, and patches of coarse grasses cropped out,

here and there. The altitude was not particularly great, but it was

beginning to tell upon the man when his strange guide halted in a little

open glade, where the wash ended abruptly.

Night was falling, and Gard could make out very little save that the

forest growth closed in the glade on all sides. Overhead he could just

get a glimpse of the purpling sky, where the stars were already out. Off

at one side he could see these reflected in water, and he could hear, as

well, the gentle splash of a stream.

The camel stood beside him, wearily patient until, lifting a hand, he

removed its load and slipped the hackamore from its head. Freed, the

creature turned away, and presently Gard heard him drinking, not far

off.

He followed the sound until he reached water, and passing beyond the

camel, knelt to drink his fill from a clear, cold fountain.

Later he gathered such dry sticks as he could find and kindled a fire,

as much for protection as for warmth. He was too weary to think of food,

but crouched before the cheering blaze, alternately dozing, and rousing

to feed the flame.

As often as he did the latter he could see, in the darkness beyond the

blaze, the gleaming eyes of small forest-prowlers, come to stare in

wonder at the strange thing by the pool. Nothing molested him, however,

and toward dawn he fell into a profound, restful slumber.

CHAPTER IV

The morning light did not confirm Gard’s impression that he was in the

deep woods. Beyond the thin region of growth fed by the pool the little

valley into which he had been led lay sandy and cactus-grown, like the

desert. The stream that should have watered it, that had probably, at

some time, made its way down the dry wash which he had traversed, now

found some underground outlet, and was swallowed up by the vampire plain

below.

Above the glade was a steep, rockbound ravine, down which the stream

still flowed. The pool seemed to be its last stand against the desert.

Gard, tentatively exploring the lower end of this ravine for fuel, found

a few blackberries, drying upon the bushes, and ate them, eagerly, with

appetite still unsated by his breakfast of mesquite beans. The mesquite

grew here, too; with manzanita and scrub oak, arrow-weed, and black

willow.

The man’s chief sensation was a vague surprise at finding himself still

alive. He was too sick—too weak—after his exertion and his rages of the

day before, to consider the problem of keeping himself alive. He was

chilled to the marrow, and yearned like a fire-worshipper toward the

warmth of his camp-glow. He tended the fire carefully. He dared not let

it go out; for that meant the sacrifice of another precious match.

The elemental appetite awoke when, stooping to drink from the pool, he

saw fish darting about in its clear depths. He worked with the cunning

of a pre-historic man until, by means of the feed bag, which he emptied

of its contents, he succeeded in catching two of these.

A long thorn of palo-verde served him for a knife in dressing them, and

he cooked them in the earth, with hot stones, laying each fish between

the split halves of broad lobes of the prickly pear. They were insipid,

and full of bones, but they served to satisfy his hunger.

He decided to keep a record of the days that he should spend in this

place; by sticking palo-verde thorns into an out-reaching branch of

willow, near the pool. He would stick in a thorn for each day. He cursed

the first one, as he thrust it against the wood; because he felt

powerless to do anything else.

Following, half sullenly, a mere human instinct to be busy about

something, he set about making a knife from the smallest plate of the

buggy-spring. He heated it in his fire till the paint came off, broke it

in two and spent the day working one thin end down to a cutting edge, on

a big, rough boulder. By night he had six inches of blade with one

rounded, sharp end.

He used this, next day, to cut ocotilla-stalks, to make a bed, scraping

away the thorns with sharp stones. He worked all day; less because he

wanted a bed than because he dimly realized that sanity lay in

occupation. That night he set a snare, and before morning managed to

catch a cotton-tail which he dressed and roasted for his breakfast.

He was getting over the feeling of being hunted. They would not search

for him now, he reasoned; they must feel satisfied that he had died in

the cloudburst. He bathed in the pool that day, when the sun was high,

and set about constructing a fireplace against the big boulder. This

would make fire-keeping easier.

The days slipped into weeks. Little by little the man was adapting

himself to his environment. He learned to dry the mesquite beans and

grind them between stones into a coarse flour. This he made into little

cakes, which he baked upon a flat stone before the fire. Later, he

turned over a patch of earth, watered it, and sowed it with the oats he

had saved from the storm. Now, however, his food was the mesquite, the

prickly pear, the century plant, and the fish and small game that he

managed to catch.

As he grew stronger he fashioned himself a bow of oak, shaping and

smoothing it with his rough knife, and stringing it with fibres from the

century plant. His shafts were those of the desert Indians, the arrow

weeds growing close at hand, and he tipped them with the cruel,

steel-hard dagger-points of the yucca.

With this primitive weapon he gradually grew skilful; and at last he

shot a buck, as the creature came down to the pool one night, to drink.

He dried the meat, and used the skin, when he had made it ready, as a

covering for his bed.

Twice, during the winter, the camel came back to the pool. The creature

went as it came, silent, inscrutable. Whither it went Gard did not know;

the pool was evidently one of its ports of call while going to and fro

on the mysterious business of being a camel. It accepted the man as a

matter of course, and left him, when ready, with the indifference of

fate, though Gard could have begged it on bended knees, to remain.

He was horribly lonely, with nothing but his hate, and a sick longing

for vengeance upon life, to bear him company. There were days when he

cursed the chance that had kept his worthless hulk alive, while sending

Arnold, in all his strength, down to death. He had no doubt but that the

deputy had perished. Nothing could ever have come, alive, through the

rush of water into which he had been flung.

The weeks became months. His oats were coming up, a little patch of cool

green on the yellow sand, and he had occupation to fend the field from

the small desert creatures that coveted it. He also worked at times at

making various utensils of the red clay that he found in the valley,

baking them in a rude kiln of his own fashioning.

He came by degrees to love this work, and took great pleasure in it. He

even tried to contrive a potter’s wheel, but was balked by lack of

material. He had to content himself, therefore, with modeling the clay

into such shapes of use and beauty as his untaught hands could achieve.

In time he came to ornament his work as well, graving designs on the

edges of his plates and bowls. The camel’s counterfeit presentment

figured on one or two of the larger pieces, and upon the others, as the

impulse prompted, he put inscriptions, until the homely articles of his

daily use came to be a sort of commentary, seen by no eyes save his own,

of his moods, and the longing for their expression.

He wrote thus upon other things as well. Lacking paper or implements

charcoal and sharpened sticks became his tools; the rocks and trees; his

broad earthen hearth; the plastic clay; even the yellow sand of the

desert, his tablets, and little by little all these became eloquent of

his lonely thoughts.

He put them down upon whatever served, for the mere comfort of seeing

them; scraps of lessons conned in the old brick school-house; sums;

fragments of the multiplication table; roughly drawn maps and sketches

of boyhood scenes; lines from half-remembered poems and hymns; familiar

Bible verses that his mother had taught him. They came back to him bit

by bit, in his solitude. And one and all his soul found them camps by

the way on its long journey up from despair.

From one of his excursions into the valley he brought home the empty

shell of a desert turtle. This he split, and fashioned the upper half

into a bowl to contain the palo-verde thorns of his record. They were

already crowding the willow branch, and but for them he could scarcely

have realized the passage of days.

There were a hundred and forty-seven thorns on the day that he

transferred them to the new receptacle. Gard could not be sure that he

had one for each day in the desert, but he knew that each one there

actually represented a day.

“I’ve had every one of that lot,” he told himself, talking aloud, as a

solitary man gets to do. “Had ’em in the open, in spite of the law

sharks.”

He still lived from day to day, however, despite his vows, and his

threats of vengeance. He had known, when he sought Ashley Westcott,

begging the price of a ticket east, that he was a doomed man.

“It’s all borrowed time,” he muttered, shaking the turtle-shell.

His face darkened.

“’T ain’t either,” he cried. “It’s time won back. They stole it from me

down there. They robbed me of three years, the filthy thieves! What’s a

hundred and forty-seven days against that?”

He remembered an occasion when to get away from the wood-pile that was

his special charge, in his boyhood, he had heaped a scant supply of

split wood over a pile of chunks yet untouched by the axe, and

exhibiting the result as his finished task had escaped with his fellows

upon some expedition of pleasure. He had meant to return in time to

complete his work before the cheat should be discovered, but he forgot

it.

His father had first thrashed him well for his wickedness, then lectured

him tenderly about it. The wicked, he had told him, would not live out

half their days. Gard’s laugh as he recalled the words was more nearly a

snarl.

“He was a good man all right,” he said, “but he didn’t know it all; not

by an eternal lot.”

He tormented himself with other boyish memories: the broad grassy

stretches of the prairie came up before him; the woods that neighbored

his father’s farm; the pleasant fields, and occasional low hills that

had seemed to him so high, before he had seen mountains; the

swimming-pool where he and the fellows played in summer; the

skating-pond where they raced and built forts and fought mimic battles

in winter; the red brick school-house at “The Corners”; the white church

at “The Centre,” where he had gone to Sunday school; the little shed

chamber with its creaking stairs that his mother had climbed, how many

cold nights! to see if he were warmly covered. She was gone from earth

now, but the old boyhood places were left, and he yearned for them all,

with yearning unspeakable.

“I thought I was going to get back to it,” he groaned, through his set

teeth. “I trusted that poison-snake to help me; God! If I could get

these hands on him, just once!”

But the quiet of his hundred and forty-seven days, and the balm of the

healing air, had wrought within him more than he knew. His excursions

afield grew longer, day by day, and in the gray of one beautiful morning

he started out to explore the mountain.

He had traversed the cañon before now, climbing over rocks, and around

mighty boulders washed down by ancient avalanches, or torn from above by

titanic storms, until he came to where the mountain stream took a leap

of some seventy feet, and the sheer face of the cliff barred his way.

This time, however, he followed the cañon’s edge, to which the trees

clung precariously, sycamores, oaks, and, to his delight, some walnuts.

He marked the spot where they grew, as a place to be visited in the nut

season.

The morning was far spent when he reached this point, so he lingered to

rest, to eat the jerked venison and mesquite bread he had brought with

him. Then he resumed his climb until he was well beyond the timber

growths and had to fight his way through chaparral.

He crawled among this on hands and knees, now and then, frightening

birds, and other small game, from their hiding-places, and at last came

out upon the rocky open, and the broad spaces where the large creatures

of the mountains make their homes. He noted more than one faint trail

leading over the wastes, and now and again he caught sight of deer in

the distance.

Higher still he climbed, into the regions of white sunlight, until the

cold, pure air of the snowy ranges blew through his hair, and he began

to feel the altitude. In spite of this he pressed on, and at last

reached a ridge where grew a few scattered heralds of the great pine

belt above him. Here, quite unexpectedly, the vast waste of the desert

suddenly met his gaze, far, far below.

There was a strange, horrible unreality about it. The far gray plain;

the mountain’s bare, brown bones; the wind-distorted trees; the solemn,

snowy sierras, even the blue arch of the sky, seemed but components of

some fearful nightmare.

“I’m not asleep,” he muttered; “and it’s no dream; I’ve died, and gone

to hell!”

The bitterness of desolation was upon him. His very soul lay bare in the

bright, white sunlight of the heights, and he cowered, like a child

afraid of the dark.

As he stood thus, from out the silence a soft, clear whistle rose upon

the air. It was repeated, then taken up, farther away. The man quivered

as though the sound had struck him. Then his tense muscles relaxed; he

saw the whistlers to be a covey of quail, moving along the rocks a

little below him.

They came nearer, walking in single file, full of curiosity about him,

alert, speculative, keeping up a murmur of little ornithological remarks

among themselves, the while. The gentle fearlessness of the small,

pretty creatures filled all that grim place with an ineffable grace. A

sob strained at the man’s throat.

“Just as if they were in a garden!” he whispered.

Long he stood watching the birds, who presently, as if satisfied that no

harm dwelt in him, scattered about the rocky waste in search of food.

One only remained on watch, guarding the flock from a little eminence

where he stood motionless save for his pretty crest, which the wind blew

from side to side. Gard watched him, fairly hushing his own breath lest

he alarm the small sentinel, who in turn regarded him, with bright,

innocent eyes.

“To think of it,” the man murmured, “the little, little things, so

fearless, up here in this—this—secret—place—of—the—Most—High!”

He stopped, in vague surprise at his own speech. He had not meant to say

that, but from some neglected recess of his boyhood’s memory the words

had sprung, vital with meaning.

“I wish,” he finally began, after a long pause, and ceased speaking as a

wave of sickening despair swept over his soul. The idleness of the

phrase mocked him; the folly of wishing anything, helpless there in the

bitterness of desolation, came home to him with cruel force. Then the

ache of his spirit’s yearning drew his clenched hands up toward the blue

vault.

“I wish,” he breathed, his heart pounding, his brain awhirl with a

sudden vision of the infinite wonder of things, “I wish that—if there is

such a thing as God in the world I might come to know it.”

Slowly his hands came down to his sides. The sentinel of the rocks gave

a soft little call of reassurance to the flock, which had halted,

observant of the gesture, and the birds resumed their feeding. Gard

turned for another look at the snowy ramparts on high; at the vast plain

below. All their horror was gone, for him, and he began the descent of

the mountain with the peaceful visage of one who has been in a good

place.

Far into the night he awoke with the feeling of something stirring near

him. In the dim firelight he could make out a shadowy figure on the

hearth, and he sprang up in haste. A second glance, however, as he sat

upon his ocotilla bed, showed him that there was no harm in the visitor

shivering there by the coals.

It was a burro, and the listless pose, the drooping ears and the

trembling knees proclaimed a sick burro. It was too miserable even to

move, when Gard threw an armful of brush on the fire and speedily had a

blaze by which he could see the intruder plainly. His first glance

revealed a jagged, dreadful sore on the shoulder next to the light.

Speaking very gently, he drew nearer to the burro and though the little

creature trembled violently, it let him bend down and examine the wound.

A great spike of the long, tough crucifixion-thorn had somehow become

imbedded in the flesh, and the whole surface of the shoulder was swollen

and inflamed. Gard made a little sound of pity in his throat, and the

burro, turning, tried to lick the sore.

“No use to do that yet, Jinny,” the man said. “That thorn’s got to come

out first.”

The burro had probably never before been touched by hands; but not for

nothing was Jinny wide between the ears. She scrutinized her would-be

helper closely, for a moment, through her long lashes, and drooped her

wise-looking little gray head still lower. Gard threw another armful of

light stuff on the fire and when the blaze was brightest attacked the

thorn, using one of his sharp arrows as a probe.

Once or twice the creature flinched. Once she snapped her strong teeth

at the hurting side; but Gard worked steadily and quickly, and presently

had the offender out.

“Look a’ that, Jinny,” he cried, triumphantly. It was a joy to hear

himself speaking to something alive.

“Look a’ that!” he repeated, “Ain’t you glad you found the doctor in?”

He dipped warm water from an earthen pot in the ashes, and washed the

wound carefully, talking all the while to the still trembling patient,

silently regarding him. When the place was quite clean he made a

poultice of prickly pear and bound it on with a strip of deer-skin.

“Lucky I shot another buck, Jinny,” he said, “or you wouldn’t have that

nice bandage.”

The little burro expressed no thanks; only stared solemnly at the fire.

Gard strode out into the darkness and pulled, recklessly, an armful of

his precious, growing oats. He threw the green stuff down before her and

she sniffed it curiously before she began, ravenously, to eat it.

“Hungry, weren’t you?” the man said, sympathetically. “Been too sick to

eat. Well, well, make yourself at home.”

He threw a big stick upon the fire and went back to his bed, leaving the

burro chewing, meditatively, before the blaze.

He was just falling asleep when he felt something warm fumbling about

him, and he awoke with a start, and an exclamation that quickly turned

to something very like a laugh. The grateful little burro was licking

his hands.

“Why, Jinny!” he cried, sitting up. “Well, well, Jinny! Well, I’ll be

jiggered!”

He slipped an arm over the rough little neck and the two watched the

fire till dawn.

CHAPTER V

The burro got well and throve. Gard devoted the period of her

convalescence to teaching her the essential arts of the higher

companionship. Her first lesson in burden-bearing was to bring

ocotilla-stalks from the valley. With these she saw the oat patch fenced

in from her own depredations, and lifted up her voice in remonstrance

when she found herself barred out of that delectable ground. Gard

explained the matter to her.

“This is a world, Jinny,” he said, “where we have to wait till the

things we want are ripe. I’m waiting myself, Jinny, for my time to come.

It will, some day, ah—some day!”

He was thinking of Westcott, but the curses that he was wont to call

upon his enemy’s head died upon his lips. It was not that his hatred had

died, but there seemed, somehow, to be other things than hate, even in

his tiny world.

He hunted up a palo-verde thorn with which to mark his day, Jinny

keeping him company. He still kept the record on the willow branch,

removing the thorns and putting them away whenever he had ten. There

were that number this morning.

Spring was well advanced, now. The air was soft, and sweet with the

scent of manzanita in the chaparral. For days past hundreds of wild bees

had been hovering about the pool, and the underbrush. Gard had a line on

them, and thought he knew where the bee-tree was located. His oats were

nearly ready for harvest; a century plant in the valley was sending up a

long bloom-stalk, and the sound of water leaping down the cañon mingled

with the voices of birds in the chaparral.

As Gard put back his shell, with its contents of thorns and turned

toward the pool sudden recognition came to him of a heretofore

unsuspected truth.

“By the great face of clay, Jinny,” he said, drawing a long breath,

“We’re not so bad off, after all!”

Again his eyes ranged the green circle of the glade; at the farther

side, where the growth was sparse, he could see the valley with its

yellow sands and rose-tinted air. The bright red of blossoming cacti

made vivid patches here and there in the waste; even the great barren

felt the touch of spring.

“God may have forgot this country,” the man said, after a long silence,

“But He sure made it, if He made the rest. It’s got the same brand, when

you come to see it.

“I guess, Jinny,” he continued, still gazing afar, “that the best of one

thing’s about as good as the best of another. What do you think about

it?”

As Jinny did not commit herself he sat down upon a rock and reached out

to scratch the shaggy gray head.

“If I’d got back to Iowa when I wanted to,” he went on, “I’d most likely

be dead by now.”

Jinny’s head drooped till her nose rested upon his knee, and she nodded

off to sleep. Gard let her stay and sat looking off across the valley,

his mind full of new emotion.

“A man might think,” he slowly mused, considering the mystery of his

coming to this place, “that ’twas what old Deacon Stebbins used to call

a ‘leading’.”

He turned the thought over in his mind.

“Why not?” he asked.

His eyes rested upon one toil hardened hand as it lay upon Jinny’s back.

He held it up, surveying it curiously.

“Rather different, from what it was,” he thought, clenching it into a

great fist. “Yah—” with sudden anger, “It’ll be different for Ashley

Westcott if ever he comes to feel it.”

His mind dwelt upon that possibility.

“If ever I do get hold of him,” he muttered, and then paused, as

half-forgotten memories of that faithful teacher came flocking to the

front.

“The deacon ’d be down on that idea,” he reflected. “Wonder how he’d

work his pet hobby o’ forgiveness here. He couldn’t judge of

everything,” his thought still ran on. “The deacon he never got so near

Hell as Arizona. If he had he’d have found it a place his God of Mercy

hadn’t got on His map.”

He put Jinny aside and set to work fashioning himself a new cup. He had

broken his only one the night before.

“I guess I was wrong about that last notion.” His brain took up the

question again as he shaped the red clay. “I guess He must have this

place on the map. Looks like His mercy’d been trailing me here, so to

speak.”

He paused to contemplate the proportions of his new cup, staring, half

startled, at its rounded surface. Phrases from the old psalm that

mothers love to teach were beating upon his brain.

“Goodness and mercy,” he murmured, feeling his stumbling way among the

words, “goodness and mercy shall follow me.”

The familiar glade grew new and strange to his sight, as though he saw

it for the first time.

“Why!” he cried, a sudden light dawning, “Is _that_ what it means?”

Almost mechanically he went on patting and pressing the clay.

“I guess it does mean that,” whispered he at last, pinching up a handle

for his cup. “I didn’t think I’d be alive till now when I came up here.

I’ve wanted to die, many a time; but I’m glad, now, I didn’t. I may get

out of here some day, too. I may live to get Westcott yet!”

“‘Goodness and mercy shall follow me.’” Was that so he could live to see

his dream of vengeance fulfilled?

Ah! He could not give that up! It could never mean that he must give

that up! Else where were the good of remaining alive?

No; no; it did not mean that! Even the old deacon wouldn’t have thought

he must forgive what he, Gabriel Gard, had borne.

“Oh, Lord,” Gard said aloud, “It can’t mean that! It ain’t in human

nature that it should mean that!”

The cup in his hand was crushed again to formless clay. He tore and

kneaded it viciously, great drops of sweat beading his forehead.

“It’s against human nature,” he groaned as he sought to bring the

plastic stuff again into shape. “I can’t do it! But—” The words rose to

an agonized wail as his spirit recognized the inexorableness of this

demand upon its powers—“I’ve got to. I’ve got to!”

His mind went back to the day upon the mountain-ridge, when he had seen

the quail, and he remembered his wish, the wish that had been almost a

prayer; remembered it with a hushed feeling of awe.

“If I’d sensed it,” he said in a voice tense with his soul’s pain, “If

I’d sensed that this is what comes of knowing there’s a God, I guess I

wouldn’t have dared wish that.”

Hour after hour the battle was fought over the wet, red clay, and the

day was far spent before the cup was ready for the kiln. When at last

Gard, weary, but at peace, brought it for the final perfecting of the

fire, he paused, ere he thrust it in, to read once more the rude letters

graven deep in its fabric.

THE CUP OF FORGIVENESS

“We’ll see how it comes out,” he muttered, grimly, but already the hope

grew in his heart that the clay would stand the test.

Throughout the spring Gard busied himself with building a cabin. He

needed a place in which to keep his stores from prowling creatures. A

brown bear had secured a good part of the last deer he had shot—secured

it while it was drying on branches of the mesquite—and the birds and

small beasts of the chaparral took toll of all his scanty supplies.

Then, too, he took a man’s delight in construction, and the building of

the cabin had come to be a labor of love, as well as of necessity.

The walls of the structure were of desert stones laid up in mud. For the

roof he brought skeleton stalks of suhuaro. Later he meant to plaster

these with adobe, into which he should work straw, and the coarse gramma

grass of the region.

He worked upon the building at odd times, as the summer went on, taking

increasing joy in bringing it to completeness. He mascerated

prickly-pear cactus in water and soaked the earthen floor with the

resulting liquor, pounding it down afterwards until it was hard and

smooth as cement. He made his door of ocotilla-stalks laid side by side

and woven with willow-withes. In the same way he contrived a shutter for

the window, and he constructed a second, smaller, fireplace, within the

cabin.

“When we have distinguished visitors, Jinny,” he told the little burro,

“We’ll kindle a fire for them here.”

He still used the larger hearth outside. He had learned, after many

trials, to kindle a fire with the aid of flint and steel, and was no

longer dependent upon matches.

When his shelter was complete he contrived furniture for it, for the

sheer pleasure of construction. Lacking boards, or the means to

manufacture them, he wove his table-top of arrow-weed and tough grasses

from the cañon. It was beginning to be a source of delight to him to

contrive solutions for each new problem of his hard existence.

One night, in the early autumn, Gard was wakened by a fearful crash of

thunder. He sprang from his bed, to find Jinny already huddled against

him. All about them was the roar of the sudden storm.

The pool had overflowed, and swept across the glade in a broad stream,

pouring down the defile in a whelming tide. The heavens seemed to have

opened, torrentially; Gard’s bed was beaten down, and the fire was

flooded. Gard himself was almost thrown to earth by the thrashing rain

ere he could reach the cabin, into which he darted, Jinny close at his

heels.

The shelter was built against huge boulders, out of the track of the

flood from the pool, but the mud and thatch roof leaked like a sieve. It

served, however, to break the fierce violence of the storm, and they

huddled there miserably till the worst should be over.

The sounds without were like those of a battle: the echoing rattle of

thunder down the cañon; the rending of rocks; the crash of falling

trees; the screaming of the wind—all mingled in a fierce, wild tumult.

A flash of lightning revealed a great scrub oak, torn from its anchorage

above, crashing down into the glade. The next instant the whole place

seemed filled with some giant thing that raged and snarled, hurling

itself from side to side in mighty struggle.

It dashed against the fireplace, flinging the great stones of it in

every direction, and fell upon the uprooted tree in a frenzy of titanic

rage.

Its horrible roaring shook the cabin, and Jinny, pressing against Gard,

was almost beside herself with terror. Gard himself, peering through the

window of the hut, could make out nothing definite, until another flash

suddenly showed him a huge grizzly, reared upon its hind legs, striking

madly at the empty air.

The storm had moderated, now, and he could hear, as he strained to

listen, the fearful snarls of the bear rising above the roar of the

wind. The threshing tumult of its plunging had ceased, however, and even

the snarling had grown weaker.

The rain ceased, but the wind still swept the glade, and the pool had

become a lake. Gard was chilled to the bone, but dared not venture

without. He had not heard the grizzly for some time, but Jinny still

cowered against him, trembling.

At dawn he looked from the window upon a scene of devastation. The

ground was strewn with debris. Great boulders had been hurled down by

the torrent’s force, and beside one ragged block of granite lay the

grizzly, terrible, even in death. One side of its savage head was

crushed in, and a shoulder shattered.

Jinny was still too terrified to venture outside the hut, but Gard went

out and set to work to restore some semblance of order about the place.

The roof of the shack was a wreck. Gard had to clear away a part of it

that had fallen, before he could find his precious matches and get a

fire. There were nine of the matches left, and it took two to start a

blaze with the soaked wood. He breakfasted upon dried venison, which he

shared with Jinny, grown catholic in her tastes, and then set about

skinning and dressing the bear.

He stretched and scraped the great hide, and pinned it out upon the

earth, (it meant warmth and comfort to him through the coming winter

nights,) and cut the meat into long strips, to dry. It would be a

welcome change, later, from venison and rabbit.

It was noon before his toil was completed and the traces of it so far

removed as to ease Jinny’s perturbation. He was obliged to bathe in the

enlarged pool before she seemed comfortable when near him.

As he dressed, after his ablutions, his eye caught a broken bit of rock

lying at the water’s edge. He picked it up, a curious tightening in his

throat.

There is something about the glitter of a streak of yellow in a bit of

rock that would set the heart of the last man on the last unsubmerged

point of earth to beating fast. The piece of float was freshly severed

and the flecks of yellow showed plainly in its split surface. Gard

scrutinized the mud round about, and beyond the pool found another bit

of float.

Forgetful of all else, he sprang up the cañon. It, too, was full of

debris, witness to the mighty power of the storm. He hardly knew the

place as he climbed along, making a new way for himself; for the swollen

stream roared wildly where but the day before he had been able to walk.

The cañon walls on either side were wrought and twisted by the action of

ancient heat, scarred and eroded by the force of ancient waters, but

they revealed no fresh break, though he scanned them eagerly.

He kept on, however; for a quarter of a mile above the pool another bit

of float pointed the way. It was a savage climb, but mounting, circling

and crawling past heaped up boulders and masses of earth, he presently

found progress checked by a landslip, beneath which the rushing water

was already cutting a channel.

Here lay the vein, uncovered, the gleaming particles in the cloven rock

making the man’s breath come thick as he studied them.

There was no doubt about it: he had discovered pay rock of the richest

sort. How rich it was he had no means of determining, nor did he then

dream; but he knew that right in sight was more gold than he should be

able to get out with any tool at his command, and hope was already high

within him.

He stooped and picked up small fragments of broken rock that lay among

the debris. How heavy they were! What power they represented! What

dreams might come true, by the aid of their yellow shine!

Here was his ticket east. Here was a ticket to the uttermost parts of

the earth. With it he could go away, stand rehabilitated among his

fellows. Golden vistas of power and pleasure spread out before him as he

stood gazing long at the cleft, yellow-flecked rock before him.

“Whoever runs this outfit,” he whispered, “has remembered it, after

all.”

It was long before he could bring himself back to reality. Only the

gathering autumn gloom, coming early, in the cañon’s depth, finally

recalled him. He began turning over in his mind the means he must

contrive with which to meet this emergency. If only he had the tools!

“It’s up to me to make some,” he said aloud, and at the words he

suddenly turned and looked back at the golden vein he was leaving.

“You’re great!” he shouted; “You’re bully to have; but you ain’t all

there is to it!”

He spread out his hard hands. “These that can make the things to get you

out with are better yet,” he said, speaking more slowly.

For he suddenly remembered the pit from which he was digged, and the

man’s heart yearned to his fire beside the clean pool, and for the life

there that he had wrested from nothing.

CHAPTER VI

Gard and Jinny were on an expedition after salt. The instinct hidden in

the gray little hide was so much more useful in the case than the

thinking machinery beneath the man’s thatch of hair, that she had long

ago led him to a desert supply of this commodity, which he had longed

for, without being able to supply his need.

He was utilizing the trip in an effort to make Jinny bridlewise, a

proceeding which filled her with great displeasure. She was a sturdy

little brute, of good size for a wild burro, and she bore his weight

without apparent effort; but she had a fondness for choosing her own

direction, and objected, strongly, to the guiding rein. She protested,

now, raising her voice, after the manner of her kind, when Gard, from

her back, essayed to turn her at his will.

“Jinny! Jinny!” he remonstrated; “Not for the world would I call you

anything but a lady; but I can’t be so mistaken, Jinny! You’re not a

nightingale!”

Jinny was persistent, however, in her determination to travel eastward,

and although her companion, had he been allowed a preference, would have

elected to go toward the west, he had learned enough about his small

gray friend to be willing to trust her judgment in the matter.

“Though I must say, Jinny,” he remarked, reproachfully, as he gave her

her head, “that it’s spoiling the making of a good saddle-burro.”

It was well toward the end of Gard’s second year in the desert. In all

this time he had but once encountered his own kind.

On that occasion, too, he had been after salt, and he had met a desert

Indian afar on the plain. They had talked together, after a fashion, by

the aid of signs, and Gard had learned that the railroad lay three days

distant, toward the north-west. This was a matter about which he had

often speculated, and he was glad of the information. Because of it, he

proffered the Indian the deputy’s pipe, which he had with him,

happening, on that day, to be wearing Arnold’s coat. The brave took it,

the gift only serving to strengthen his already formed opinion that the

gaunt white man with the great beard was loco.

It was a year since the discovery in the cañon. Gard had worked the

vein, in a primitive way, making for the purpose a rough mattock, from

his useful wagon-spring. It was by far the best tool he had constructed,

and he regarded it with even more pride and pleasure than he took in the

two heavy little buckskin bags for which he had made a hiding-place in

the chimney of the rehabilitated cabin.

He had arrived in these days at a strange content. He loved the vast

reaches of his large place; the problems of his elemental environment.

The luminous blue sky, the colorful air, the immensity of the waste

plain, gave him pleasure. Even the weird desert growths no longer

oppressed him.

“After all, Jinny,” he said, as they threaded their way gingerly past a

great patch of cholla, with its vicious, hooked spines, “there’s as much

life here as there is death. I never sensed it before; but everything’s

got a claw to hang onto life with.”

The thought of returning to civilization was put away with ever

increasing ease. He had not abandoned the idea, but it came as a more

and more remote possibility. Even his dream of vengeance had long been

put aside. He had learned the futility of hate in the nights when he

watched the great stars wheel by, marking the march of the year.

“There’s nothing in it,” he had finally said to himself.

“It ain’t a man’s job to be staking out claims in hell for another

fellow.”

If Jinny, who heard this, did not understand, she at least offered no

contradiction, being by that much wiser than many of her kind on a

higher plane.

The desert stretched away before Gard, vast, silent, untamed, at this

moment a thing of gold and flame, touched, far in the distance, by great

cloud-shadows, that sent the man’s gaze from the fierce plain to the

wide blue overhead. But not a cloud was in sight and he realized that,

probably for the hundredth time, he had been deceived by patches of lava

cropping up among the red and yellow sands.

Something that was not a cloud arrested his attention. Far in the sky

half a dozen great black birds flew, now high, now lower, but circling

always above one spot. Gard watched them with an understanding eye.

“Jinny,” he said, “There’s something dying, over there. You and I’d

better go see what it is.”

He had dismounted some time since, and was walking beside the burro. Now

he started forward at a faster pace. It might be only a hurt coyote that

the hideous birds waited for, but it _might_ be a man! The thought

quickened his steps still more, till Jinny had to trot, to keep pace

with him.

Once an aerial scavenger swooped lower than any other had yet done, and

at the sight the man broke into a run. The birds still kept off,

however. Whatever it was, lying out there, somewhere, it was yet alive.

They were traveling along the edge of a deep barranca that yawned in the

desert, and presently Gard caught sight of a dark object lying on the

sand, at the bottom of the fissure. It was a man. The banks of the ditch

sloped just there. Evidently he had attempted to cross, and had been

caught in quicksand.

He was lying on his back, his arms outstretched, his feet wide apart, a

curious rigidity about his whole figure. Gard’s long stride left Jinny

far behind as he ran.

“Hold on!” he shouted. “Somebody’s coming!”

There was no response from the man. He lay as one dead, save for the

occasional lifting now of one arm, now of the other.

Down the sloping bank Gard ran, to the very edge of the shifting sand.

Here he stopped, and began cautiously to tread, his feet side by side,

stamping, stamping, moving forward half an inch at a time, but never

ceasing to tread. He was harried by the need of haste, but he made sure

of his progress as he went, knowing that the sand must be solidly

packed, every inch of the way.

From time to time he spoke to the man, and at last got a mumbled word or

two from the swollen lips. The need of haste was increasing every

second, and Gard worked breathlessly, now, till at last he could touch

his fellow, lying there.

Still marking time with his feet upon the sand, he slipped from his own

waist the riata he always carried when he came down to the plain. He had

made it himself of finely braided hide, suppled and wrought with

faithful care, and he knew its strength. Working fast, he raised the

man’s shoulders, ever so little, and slipped the rope beneath his arms.

He knotted it into a loop and adjusted it over his own shoulders. Then,

getting a strong hold with his hands under the man’s arms, he

straightened up.

The sand slipped, and ran, gurgling horribly, sucking, sucking, loth to

lose its victim, but the pull of rope and hands together counted. Gard

took a backward step and gained a few precarious inches.

A second time he stooped, and straightened, repeating the performance

again and again, until the man lay upon the trampled path. Gard could

use his strength to better advantage now, and half lifting the dead

weight, he drew it back to the edge of the sand.

The man was barely conscious, but Gard laid him on the sloping bank and

gave him a little water from his canteen.

It revived him somewhat, and was repeated, after a moment. He was able

to mumble now, begging for more, which Gard gave him as fast as he

dared, till at last the poor fellow got to his hands and knees, and was

able, with help, to crawl slowly up to the plain.

Here, Gard soaked a little cake of oat flour in water, and fed him like

a baby, but it was an hour before he was able, after many attempts, to

get the man upon Jinny’s back.

He could not sit erect, but Gard walked beside him, supporting him, and

the little cavalcade set out for home. The rescued man was half

delirious, and muttered continually, between his pleadings for water, of

the heat; of thirst, and of the vultures. Gard could not make out what

particular disaster had befallen him, but the empty canteen slung at his

back, and the absence of anything like food, or of an outfit, was

eloquent witness that a desert tragedy had been averted.

Before they had gone far up the trail to the glade the delirious

muttering ceased; the man swayed toward his rescuer until his head

rested upon the latter’s shoulder, and so they went on. Whether he was

asleep, or in a faint, Gard could not tell.

“He’s had a tough pull, that’s certain, Jinny,” he said, giving the

burro an encouraging pat.

Could Jinny have spoken she might have said that she was herself having

a hard pull. She had often carried Gard, on the plain, but this dead

weight, on an up-grade, was a brand-new surprise for her. She wagged her

solemn little head sorrowfully as she plodded on, and not even the oat

cake that Gard reached forth to her seemed to impart any charm to life

as she then saw it.

They reached the glade at last, and Gard got the stranger upon his own

bed, covering him with the great bear-skin robe. He brought him nearly

all that was left of the deputy’s whiskey, cherished carefully all these

months, and set to preparing a meal.

He kicked aside the smoldering ashes of a nearly burned out fire on the

hard earth, and with a few thrusts of a broad, flat stick, disclosed the

earthen jar of mesquite beans that he had left to cook in his absence.

Simmering with the beans were the marrowbone of a deer and the carcass

of a rabbit caught that morning. The savory whiffs from the steaming

mess made the exhausted man on the bed turn his face to the fire.

“How in all git out,” he began, feebly, and stared in amazement; for

Gard had flanked the bean-pot with another, taken from the fire he had

quickly kindled by transferring the still smoldering sticks from the

bake-fire to the fireplace. The visitor sniffed at this second pot,

incredulously.

“Where ’d you git coffee?” he demanded.

“Sweet acorns,” Gard explained, briefly. He was tasting the full joy of

hospitality as he brought wild honey, and more oat cakes, from the

shack.

The stranger reached eager hands toward the acorn coffee.

“Gimme some—hot!” he pleaded.

Gard filled a crooked earthen bowl with it and brought it to him,

steaming. He drained it, almost savagely, handing the bowl back with a

sigh of satisfaction that left nothing for words to express.

“Partner,” he said, his little close-set eyes taking in the scene,

wonderingly, “This is sure a great layout. How’d ye find the place, an’

what’s yer game?”

“I got up here by chance,” Gard said, evasively. “I liked the spot, and

so I’ve stayed along. My name’s Gard,” he added, remembering that he had

not told it.

“Mine’s Thad Broome,” the other replied, “an’ I’m runnin’ the hell of a

streak o’ luck.”

Gard had moved his little table up beside his guest, and now he

proceeded to serve his meal on flat, clay plates of rather nondescript

shape. He had a fork and a spoon, rudely fashioned of wood, and these he

allotted to the stranger.

“Did you make everything ye’ve got?” Broome demanded, examining them

curiously.

“Very nearly,” was the reply, and the new-comer began to eat, eagerly.

At intervals, during the meal, he told his story.

“I’m a cowman myself,” he said, flinging a bone out across the glade,

“An’ if ever I git back on the range ye kin fry me in skunk ile first

time ye ketch me off it.”

He took another great draught of the acorn coffee, swearing, savagely,

as he set the bowl down.

“Seems like I’d never git the taste o’ the desert out’n my mouth again,”

he muttered.

“I was with the ‘K bar C’ outfit,” he went on, “Up Tusayan way. Know

it?”

Gard shook his head.

“Then ye’re that much better off,” Broome said, gloomily. “The grub was

fierce; they was a foreman that was seven hull devils all rolled in one,

an’ a range that’d drive ye crazy to ride. I was mighty sick of it, a

while along, an’ I met up with a cuss one day that ’d bin out

prospectin’ an’ struck it rich. So, bein’ a blame fool, I got the

fever.”

He paused to watch his host, who was gathering the remains of the meal

and putting things shipshape with a certain fine neatness that had

become the habit of Gard’s solitude.

“D’ye allus put on as much dog as that?” he asked.

“As much as what?”

“Cleanin’ camp like an old maid school-ma’am,” was the reply. “Jus’ you

alone: wha’d ye bother for?”

“It had to be that, or to go on all fours.” Gard offered no further

explanation. Thad Broome’s type was familiar enough; he had foregathered

with it by many a camp fire. He had saved this man from a horrible

death, and the fellow was his guest; yet he realized, with a feeling of

shamed hospitality, that Broome’s presence was irksome.

“Been here long?” the latter asked.

“Longer than it has seemed, maybe,” laughed Gard.

“There’s a difference in things,” he added, lightly. “I guess, now, the

time you were down in the quicksand seemed longer than it really was?”

“Hell, yes!” Broome was launched again on the stream of his troubles. He

resumed the narrative, sprinkling it liberally with oaths. He had

started out with a full equipment and a good bronco, and the creature

had “died on him,” a week before, in the desert.

“You should have had a burro,” Gard said.

“So they said. But I stuck to the idee of a bronc. I ain’t no walkist.”

“He didn’t last but three weeks,” he added, “an’ when he croaked the

damned buzzards was on ’im before I got out o’ sight.”

“Where were you going when you struck the quicksand?” the other asked.

“Tryin’ to strike the railroad, afoot,” was the reply. “It’s me fer

ridin’ when I can. I said I wan’t no walkist. I got turned ’round. I

kep’ lightin’ load, an’ my grub gin out. Then I run out o’ water.” He

gave a shuddering gulp, and continued:

“I run round a lot, lookin’ fer’t, till I got in the quicksand. That was

just before you hollered, I guess. But them buzzards was Johnny on the

spot the minute I was down. I most went mad with ’em.”

“Didn’t you have a gun?” Gard asked. “Why didn’t you fire it?”

“Gun? You bet yer life I had a gun. I fired all my am-nition an’ then I

fergit what. I guess I threw the damned thing away. I got dotty, havin’

no water.”

“And there was good water within twenty feet of you,” Gard said,

musingly.

“How’s that?” Broome’s tone was incredulous.

“Why didn’t you tap the nigger-head there by the barranca?” his

companion asked.

“What—the big cactus like a green punkin? What for?” Broome demanded,

and Gard explained the nature of the bisnaga. If he had cut off the top

he would probably have found a quart or two of water. Broome listened

with curious intentness, and when the other had finished, broke into a

torrent of execration.

He cursed the desert in its nearness and its remoteness, inclusively and

particularly, for several moments, until presently words seemed to fail

him, and the torrent of his oaths dribbled to an intermittent trickle.

When he finally paused for breath Gard sat as though he had not heard,

staring across the glade at the fire, but Jinny, at his side, seemed all

attention, her long ears pricked forward, her sagacious little visage

turned full upon the stranger. There was something disconcerting in the

attitude of the two, and Broome felt it, without comprehending it. His

voice trailed off weakly.

“Mebby ye don’t like my remarks,” he said, lamely, “I notice ye don’t

cuss none yerself?”

“Don’t I?” Gard asked the question in all simplicity. “I didn’t know

it.”

Broome stared, uneasily, until the other was constrained to take notice.

“I guess I do,” he laughed, half apologetically. “I guess I swear as

much as anybody, when I feel so,” he added, “but I don’t feel so

much—not nowadays.”

“Ye kin jus’ bet yer life,” blustered Broome, with a show of being at

ease, “that if ye’d bin through what I have ye’d be ready to cuss the

hull blamed outfit.”

He laughed loudly, as he spoke, but Gard was replenishing the fire, and

made no reply.

Long hours after Broome was sleeping, exhausted, his host sat before the

glowing embers. The day’s experiences had brought much to consider.

For one thing, it was certain that the time had arrived when he must

return to civilization. He could not keep Broome with him, even if the

latter wished to stay. He saw endless possibilities of pain and trouble

in such a partnership. And since he could not keep him, he must himself

go before Broome had a chance to make any explorations. His heart sank

at the prospect.

“It’s been mighty peaceful here, Jinny,” he whispered to his faithful

little comrade, who dozed beside him in the firelight. “We’ll sure miss

it.”

Jinny shifted her weight in her sleep, and her head drooped lower.

“One thing, old girl,” Gard said, regarding her, whimsically, “You don’t

have to think about it. A man’s different; he knows when he’s well off,

and hates to leave it.”

He glanced about him. The firelight touched fitfully the encircling

trees, the great rocks, the open door of the shack where Broome lay

asleep, the gleaming pool. Above in the violet depths, blazed the

dipper; how many times he had watched it patrol the sky!

“I hate to go,” he whispered, again, “I hate to go, Jinny; but good as

’tis, I know it ain’t really life. A man belongs with men. They may be

good or they may be bad; but a man’s got to take ’em as he meets up with

’em. He can’t be a real man forever, just by himself.”

CHAPTER VII

The first touch of dawn saw Gard awake and stirring. He went softly

about the glade, feeding Jinny in her little corral off at one side, and

preparing his own breakfast. The meal finished, he left food where his

guest could find it, and made his way up the cañon. He had settled in

his own mind that if Broome was able to travel they should leave the

glade on the following day; but there was first something that he must

do.

The forenoon was well advanced when Broome stirred, opened his eyes and

sat up with a start. He was a moment or two realizing his surroundings

and recalling the events that had brought him to this place.

He sat staring at the cabin; at the rough mud-and-stone walls; the

primitive fireplace; the rude furnishings, and finally summed up his

impressions in a phrase:

“Hell! What a layout!”

Then, remembering Gard’s probable proximity, he went heavily to the

door.

There was no one in sight. In the big outer fireplace an “Indian” fire

smoldered, guarded on one side by the earthen coffee-pot, on the other

by the big kettle of beans. On the table were a bowl and a plate; the

former upside down over some cakes of oat bread. Broome welcomed the

sight, for he was hungry.

“Wonder where the _patron_ got to so early,” he muttered as he fell upon

the food.

He ate swinishly, standing before the fire, and had nearly completed his

meal when he caught sight of the inscription Gard had put upon the cup

from which he was drinking. His little shifty eyes studied it curiously

as he turned the cup about.

“What in tunk is that for?” he muttered, perplexed, and when he had

managed to decipher the words he nearly dropped the little vessel in his

surprise.

“T-h-e c-u-p o-f f-o-r-g-i-v-e-n-e-s-s,” he spelled again, holding the

cup up to the light and feeling the sunken letters with one hard finger.

“Rummy kind o’ cup that’d be.”

He stooped to refill it with “coffee” from the blackened pot in the

embers and, as he straightened up, his eye met another inscription, on a

broad stone beside the door of the cabin. He read it aloud, laboriously:

“_Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee._”

“‘Peace’—‘peace.’” Broome looked about him, half dazed, groping in the

void of his own spiritual habitation for an explanation of what he saw.

“There’s sure peace good an’ plenty in these diggings,” he muttered, “if

that’s what a man’s aimin’ to locate; peace enough to drive him loco.

Guess that’s what ails him. He must be a jumpin’ luny to go scratchin’

round like this.... There’s another one!”

He espied it on the wall over the pallet where he had slept.

“_I will both lay me down in peace and sleep; for Thou Lord only, makest

me dwell in safety._”

Gard had written that the day after the night of terror when storm had

devastated the glade; written it remembering how his mother had taught

it to him, an imaginative little chap, afraid of the dark. He had been

saying his prayers one night, beside his cot in the shed-chamber, when

he became afraid the SOMETHING was coming through the gloom to grab him

from behind as he knelt. His mother, coming to tuck him up, found him

cowering under the blankets and winning from him the secret of his

fright, sat down beside him and taught him the beautiful verse. Broome,

reading it now, experienced a feeling of dread.

“Peace again,” he growled, “I hope he gets peace enough with all his

bug-house slate-writing. The feller’s hell on religion; shouldn’t wonder

if he was a preacher.”

He turned away with an awed shiver.

“Gosh!” he ejaculated, “I’m glad I didn’t see that over my head last

night. I couldn’t a’ slept a wink.”

He went outside again to fill and drink another cup of acorn coffee, and

when his bodily hunger was satisfied left the debris of his meal on the

hearth and wandered about the glade, seeking gratification of his

objective curiosity.

“Why!” he exclaimed, when he discovered Jinny, in the corral, “The

_patron_ can’t be far off: he’s left the burro!”

He surveyed Jinny thoughtfully, as she stood at the far side of the

corral. Then he wandered over to Gard’s rude pottery-factory.

“I’d like to know what the cuss is doin’ here,” he thought. “He’s made

his outfit from the ground up.”

He was struck by that as he continued his roving scrutiny. Gard’s bow

and arrows fairly frightened him.

“That fellow’s clean dotty,” he muttered. “What in thunder kin a live

man do with that?”

Presently he found the first knife Gard had fashioned, laid upon a ledge

of the camp fireplace, and turned it over like one bewildered.

“Shivering spooks!” he swore, softly; “If this _ain’t_ an outfit! He

don’t look like a ‘lunger,’” he added, referring again to Gard; “nor

this ain’t no prospector’s layout; nor the cuss don’t seem locoed—not

altogether. It’s what I thought. He’s some kind of a preacher. He don’t

cuss none, an’ he seemed sorter quiet like last night. He didn’t act

just like it, though, neither.”

Born of desire, another idea assailed him. “Wonder where he keeps his

whiskey,” he mused. “That was a hell of a good sample he showed last

night.”

He began to search more systematically, still keeping an alert eye for

Gard’s possible return.

“They ain’t no hiding-place outside,” he decided, and turned his

attention once more to the cabin. He had no idea what sort of a

receptacle to look for, and a scrutiny of the corners revealed nothing.

He crossed the room, to the fireplace, and suddenly gave a little start.

He had made what promised to be a discovery.

He tiptoed to the door: no one was in sight, but he stepped outside and

again made the round of the glade. Coming back, he took the precaution

to close the door when he reëntered the hut.

At the fireplace again, he stooped and put both hands upon a stone

half-way up one side of the rude chimney. As he had foreseen, it came

away in response to a little lift—Gard’s hiding-place for his treasure

had been a most casual thing at best—and a recess lay revealed.

Again Broome listened for sounds outside, ere he lifted first one, then

the other, of the two buckskin bags that lay before him.

They were not large; but they were very heavy, and a peep into one

revealed the yellow gleam that he had expected.

The little eyes glittered, and the man’s fingers opened and shut,

clawlike, but he closed the bag, tying its buckskin string, and put it

back. There were some papers with the bags, but he would look at those

later.

He fitted the stone back into place, scrutinizing it keenly afterwards,

to be sure that he had left no signs of his meddling.

“The sneakin’ cuss!” he snarled, moving back from the chimney. “He’s got

a mine up here! That’s what he was so sly about last night. He’s gone

there now, an’ he thinks he’ll keep me out of it. I’ll bet he’s up there

covering his tracks.”

He was outside, now, muttering wrathfully. “No ye don’t, my smart

coyote,” he sneered, “Yer kin just bet yer sweet life Thad Broome sits

in this game, sure!”

He went the rounds again, scouting eagerly, till his trained plainsman’s

eyes detected a faint trail leading over the rocks at one side of the

stream.

It was but the suggestion of a pathway, trodden by Gard’s moccasined

feet, but it was enough for the pryer’s sharpened senses. A moment later

Broome had skirted the pool, and was hot on the scent.

The trail grew clearer as he followed it, and he pressed on, a growing

rage in his heart, toward the man who had found a good thing and was

keeping him out of it, after all that he had suffered. Curiously enough,

it was only his own part in yesterday’s adventure that he remembered.

Gard’s agency in his rescue and present safety was forgotten or ignored.

Half an hour’s cautious travel, and his ear caught a sound somewhere

beyond. He crept on stealthily from one sheltering boulder to another,

keeping carefully out of sight, until at last, clambering upon a

shelving rock, he peered down upon Gard at work below him.

The cañon was very deep here, its walls towering, bare and grim,

hundreds of feet in air. A great mass of piled-up rock nearly bridged

the stream, and Broome could plainly see the nature of the vein that had

been laid bare. Its promise fairly made him gasp.

He could see, as well, what Gard was doing.

On the face of the rock, close beside the opening where he had worked

the claim, he had scratched his location notice, roughly enough, with

his inadequate tools, but in letters perfectly legible, defining clearly

the boundaries of his claim as he had staked it out.

Having done this, he had gone over the letters again, with charcoal,

until they stared in inerasable distinctness from the rock. Now he stood

at a little distance, regarding his finished work.

“The damned, sneakin’ swine,” muttered the watcher. “I’ll git even with

him; he’s staked the mother-lode.”

He leaned forward eagerly to watch, as Gard moved toward the opening in

the rock. What was he going to do next?

He saw him stoop for something, and crept nearer the edge of the rock,

forgetful of concealment. Attracted by some slight sound Gard suddenly

glanced up and looked the spy full in the face. In an instant Broome had

sprung upon him and was clutching at the mattock which the other had

just picked up.

“Think yer goin’ ter kill me with that, do yer?” Broome snarled. “I’ll

show yer!” He struck at Gard’s eyes, at the same time striving to wrench

the tool from him.

Half blinded by the onslaught, the other clinched, instinctively, with

his foe, and a grim battle began.

Back and forth it raged, across the bit of sandy floor at the base of

the rocks, each man striving for possession of the tool.

Broome was powerfully built, and he had rested from the agony of the day

before. He was the heavier of the two, and he fought with an insane fury

that pressed his antagonist back against the cliff before Gard had well

recovered from the shock of his attack.

Fiercely, silently the two struggled until Gard, momentarily securing

the mattock, flung it afar upon the sand. Broome gave a shriek of savage

rage, and would have sprung for it, but the other man closed upon him

and caught him with one powerful arm about the neck, pressing his face

earthward.

Desperately Broome grasped the other’s body, striving to break that iron

hold, but Gard’s blood was up, and he “saw red,” as his free arm rained

blows upon the other’s back.

Strain as he would Broome could not break free, nor trip his foe. The

fellow seemed made of iron, and the hammering of that fearful fist was

driving the breath from his body. He gathered his forces for a last

effort, but his breath already came in gasps, and he sank in a heap upon

the sand.

Gard hauled him to his feet, fiercely.

“Stand up!” he shouted, as he faced him about.

Broome would have fallen again, but Gard upheld him, forcing him forward

over the rocks, back toward camp. Once he turned, as if he would strike,

but a glance at that fierce, set face herded him on again, cowed and

stumbling.

“What are ye goin’ ter do to me?” he demanded, at last, tortured by

Gard’s silence. There was no reply.

“I’ve as good a right in the cañon as you,” Broome persisted. He was in

that state of hysterical strain that could not refrain from speech.

“I wouldn’t have touched ye if ye hadn’t come at me with that pick,” he

lied. Still not a word from Gard, and Broome kept quiet till they

reached camp, and Gard produced a rope.

It was the same with which he had dragged the fellow from the sand the

day before; the loop that had been about his body was still in one end.

The cowman shrieked when he saw it.

“What are ye goin’ to do to me?” he screamed. “By God! You tell me!

What’s that thing fer?”

He sprang upon Gard again, and was tossed back like a child. A moment

later he was lying upon the ground, bound hand and foot, and Gard

towered above him.

“What am I going to do with you?” he asked, in cold scorn; “What would

you do to me, if I was where you are?”

Broome glared his hate, and fear. “Yah!” he snarled, “I’d kill yer. I’ll

kill yer yet, if yer don’t look out.”

For reply the other gathered him up, dragged him into the cabin and

threw him upon the bed there. Then he went outside.

Gard was in a state of amazement. He looked at his own brown hands, and

rolling up a sleeve of his buckskin shirt gazed upon his own right arm,

lean, sinewy, knotted with iron muscles. He contracted, then relaxed it,

slowly, and finally struck himself a resounding blow on the chest. Then

he laughed, under his breath.

“And all this time,” he said, in a sort of wonder, “I’ve thought I was a

rather sick man.”

He walked over to the corral where Jinny’s shaggy head showed over the

barrier. There was keen joy in his swift stride, and in the new sense of

power, and physical well-being, that filled him.

“Jinny,” he said, tweaking one of the long ears pricked forward to

welcome him, “I guess the right place for me is here in the corral.”

He regarded the little burro thoughtfully.

“I hate to break it to you, old girl,” he went on, “But you’ve got to

carry that load of dirt and poison down to the desert again. It’s the

only way.”

He turned again and busied himself about the camp, clearing away the

debris of Broome’s meal, and putting the place to rights. He brought out

the largest of his willow baskets, one that he had made to fit Jinny’s

back, and proceeded to fill it from his food-stores. Broome, within the

shack, watched his movements whenever he came within range, but he had

learned his lesson, and asked no questions. Later in the day Gard

brought him food, and released his hands that he might eat, but neither

man spoke, and when Broome had finished eating his captor bound him

again.

Dusk was falling when Gard next came into the cabin. He had changed his

buckskin garments for those he had worn two years before. He had been

saving them for such a day of need.

“I’m going to untie your feet,” he said to Broome, “and you’re coming

outside.”

He did as he had said, and Broome followed him out.

Jinny stood there, equipped with a home-made bridle and a sort of saddle

of deer-skin. Leaning against a rock was a hamper closely packed. Gard

had put out the big camp fire and the place already wore an air of

desolation.

Inside the cabin, alone, Gard looked about with poignant regret.

“It’s sure time to go,” he told himself, sorrowfully, “But I hate to.”

He turned to the hiding-place in the chimney and secured the buckskin

bags, and the papers.

“There’s _that_ to attend to, too,” he murmured, fumbling the rumpled

and stained sheets.

“It’s been a good place,” he thought, as he shut the door of the

shelter, and looked about outside. “To think what I was when I came

here. Whatever ... yes, it’s the truth: it’s been the making of me.”

He came and stood beside Broome.

“You get on the burro,” he said.

The man demurred. “I’d rather walk,” he objected.

“I didn’t ask you what you’d rather do,” was the reply. Gard was in no

mood to bandy words, and a look at his face convinced the other that

obedience was best.

When he was settled Gard proceeded to blindfold him, whereat the cowman

swore fiercely under his breath.

“I’ll tell you now, Broome,” Gard said, when he felt sure that the

blindfold was secure, “You’ve got nothing to be afraid of long ’s you

behave yourself. I won’t leave you in the desert, but I’ll run no risk

of your ever finding your way back here. You wear that blind till I see

fit to take it off, and that’ll be when we’re good and well away on the

plain.”

He shouldered the willow hamper.

“Come along, Jinny,” he said, without looking around again, and in the

gathering dusk the outfit took its way down the dry wash to the desert.

END OF BOOK ONE

BOOK TWO

THE SIN-BUSTER

CHAPTER I

It was supper-time at the Sylvania Palace Grille. Sylvania was an

outfitting town for prospectors and cow-punchers, and the occupants of

the little oilcloth-covered tables in the “Grille” were almost

exclusively of these two classes. The telephone operator and the

express-agent had already taken their meal, and their departure, and

this was not the day for the tri-weekly stage, the driver of which

sometimes patronized Mrs. Hallard’s rotisserie.

Sing Fat and Sing Gong, the two Chinese waiters, slipped about attending

to the demands of patrons, and Mrs. Hallard herself, from behind a

counter, kept tabs on the room and set out the liquid refreshments that

the various customers called for.

The place was full of noise and bustle. The rattle of heavy crockery,

the clink of steel knives and forks, the raking of boots and spurs over

the plank floor, the clamor of voices and the monotonous sing-song of

the two Chinese calling orders to the cook, made up a medley in which,

Mrs. Hallard was wont to declare, she could hardly hear herself think.

Despite this handicap, however, very little escaped her. She managed to

hear, with no apparent difficulty, Steve Salton’s gently preferred

request that she “chalk up” the amount of his bill, and to catch his

mumbled replies to her swift interrogatories as to his prospects for

paying.

“It’s all right if you’re going to have it,” she said, with

business-like crispness. “But I ain’t here for my health, you know. I

want to see the color of your dust before too long.”

“That’s reasonable,” was Steve’s reply. “You’ll see yer pay O. K.

soon ’s I locate, an’ I’m bound to when—”

“Cut it out!” Mrs. Hallard was already pushing change across the counter

to another customer. “It’s chalked up, Steve.”

“Kate! oh, Kate!” The voice of an old habitué came across the bedlam of

sound: “Tell one o’ them pigtailed lumps o’ sin,” it went on, “to fetch

me another pony o’ that white pizen o’ your’n, quicker!”

“Gong,” the presiding genius of the place said calmly to one of the

China boys, “Go tell Tombstone he don’t need no more gin. Tell ’im I

said so.”

Gong carried the message, delivering it over his shoulder as he set

another customer’s order of “ham and” before him. Tombstone’s face, when

he received it, was worthy of his name.

“Hell!” he ejaculated to anyone who might listen, “That’s what comes o’

hashin’ off ’n a woman.”

He was still muttering gloomily when he went up to the desk to pay his

score.

“Kate,” he said with drunken gravity, as he swayed before her, “The love

o’ tyranny’s a bad thing in a man. It’s plumb perilous fer a female.”

Mrs. Hallard glanced from his money to him.

“What’s eatin’ you, Tombstone?” she demanded, ringing up the

cash-register.

“’T ain’t me. It’s you, The love o’ power air devourin’ you to that

extent you can’t serve a man his rations without cuttin’ ’em short. It

were plumb tyrannical in you to send me that there message about the

gin.”

Mrs. Hallard’s handsome black eyes surveyed him coldly.

“When a gent’s that far in he goes howlin’ a lady’s Christian name in

public like you done just now,” she said, “it’s a sign he don’t need no

more at present. There’s your change, Tombstone. Now vâmose!”

“Jake Lowrey!” she sent her voice level across the reeking room to where

a big, shaggy miner was disputing with one of the Chinamen, “This here’s

an eatin’-house. ’T ain’t a cussin’ bee. If you don’t like the victuals

served you, you know what you kin do. But while you’re in here you quit

swearin’.”

“I ain’t a cussin’ fer cussin’s sake,” the big miner pleaded, above the

laughter of the others. “I’m only inquirin’ into the nature o’ this here

sunny-side Fat’s fetched me with my hash.”

“What color is it?” the proprietor of the eating-house asked, and the

egg on Jake’s plate immediately became the center of all attention.

“It’s yeller,” its owner called, surveying it critically.

“Naw ’t ain’t neither; it’s red,” another observer decided.

“It’s a lie. It’s just the color of an orange, an’ oranges is yeller,

ain’t they?” This from a third critic.

“If it’s yeller it’s a new-laid egg,” Mrs. Hallard pronounced,

judicially. “If it’s red, it’s a fresh egg. Any other hen-fruit in this

place is ranch eggs, unless it’s chickens, an’ we don’t serve them on

the half-shell.”

During the silence that followed this elucidation of the egg question

the outside door of the place opened hesitatingly, and a young Mexican

girl looked in. Mrs. Hallard nodded, and she entered, leading by the

hand a blind countryman who carried a guitar. The pair were evidently

well known to Mrs. Hallard’s patrons, and through the thick cloud of

tobacco smoke that filled the room a number of the men shouted their

greetings.

“_Buenos noches_, Conchita.”

“Howdy, Buttercup.”

“Put her here, ’Chita!”

The girl responded to each greeting with a flash of white teeth. A

number of new-comers flocked in after her, finding seats and shouting

their orders to the China-boys.

“Come on, ’Chita, hit ’er up!” some one called.

The girl had guided her companion to a chair, and the latter now twanged

a few notes upon his guitar. Presently Conchita began to dance, slowly,

at first, gradually quickening the pace, as she flitted back and forth

in the little open space before the counter.

By degrees this space became too confined for her movements, and she

drifted, like a bit of thistledown, along the aisles between the tables.

When she came opposite Jake Lowrey she gave a quick little leap and

sprang upon the table before him, where she pirouetted among the bottles

of condiments, and the tall glass of beer over which he was lingering.

She skirted them all, daintily, her twinkling feet never still.

Suddenly she paused, balancing marvelously upon one toe, the other

outstretched before the man. Lowrey’s hand was already in his pocket,

now it came out holding a silver coin which he placed upon the

outstretched toe. In an instant it was snapped into the air and caught

by the whirling dancer as it came down. A chorus went up from the

assembly.

“Here y’ are, Conchita!” “You know me, ’Chita.” “Put ’er here, little

gal!” The men bid openly for the dancer’s favor, making haste to clear

their tables as an inducement for her to notice them.

She sprang from Jake’s table to another, across the aisle, and repeated

her graceful, agile performance, weaving in and out among the dishes,

kissing her fingers and smiling. Thus she wandered from table to table,

picking her favorites and taking toll of each, going wilfully, it

seemed, from silver lure held plainly in sight, to tables where much

less was offered.

In and out she flashed, now here, now there, until it became apparent to

all that she was working, step by step, toward the one table whose

occupant had extended no invitation.

This one was in a corner of the room, and at it sat a young man who was

to all appearances neither a prospector nor a cowboy, though he wore a

certain indefinable air of the plain. It showed in the bronze of his

face, where it was not covered by a crisp brown beard, of a cut not worn

by the usual desert-dweller; in his big, strong, tanned hands, that were

supple and deft, despite the marks of hard work upon them, and in the

steady, farseeing gaze of his brown eyes.

The little dancer was close to the stranger’s table now, and bending low

to avoid a hanging lamp, she sprang upon it, and calling something to

the guitar-player, set her feet a-twinkle through a bewildering maze of

perfectly calculated steps.

She glided about the edge of her tiny stage; she blew lightly across it;

she whirled madly in the centre of it. Everyone in the room gazed,

spell-bound, realizing that their pet dancer was outdoing herself on

this occasion.

Through it all the girl’s eyes never left the face that was upturned to

her gaze, the brown eyes regarding her with a sort of consideration that

no others in the room had shown. Admiration, challenge, desire, those

other eyes had betrayed, but these were different. Their quiet

questioning held no reproach; they were full of friendliness, and of

interest, and the coin that was presently laid upon her out-thrust toe

was cheerfully, even gaily proffered, but the girl suddenly felt that

both the interest and the gaiety were different from her own.

She tossed the silver dollar in air and caught it, with a nod of thanks.

Then she sprang to the floor and ran up the aisle to where the blind

Mexican still strummed his guitar strings.

“_Este bestante!_” she cried, pouring her earnings into his deep-crowned

hat. “_No mas._”

She kissed her fingers gaily to the applauding men and turned toward the

door. Only Kate Hallard’s keen eyes noted, without seeming to see, that

she had knotted one silver coin into a corner of her kerchief, and

slipped it into her bosom.

No more visitors came into the Palace Grille. Sylvania had supped, and

the men at the tables one by one came forward when the girl had gone, to

pay their bills and slip out into the street. In the shortest of five

minutes all were gone save the stranger in the corner, and the two

Chinese, who padded softly about, putting the place to rights.

Kate Hallard had seen the stranger throughout mealtime. She noted,

moreover, that he had more than one glance for her, the while he sat

taking his supper in a deft, dainty way that some men get from much

eating out of doors.

She was accustomed to being watched. More than one habitué of the place

had taken his turn at gazing at her, during the year that she had been

running the Palace Grille. She was not unpleasant to look at, if a man

were not over-sensitive about some things. She had an abundance of fair

hair that was not bleached, despite the contrast of her black,

long-lashed eyes. They were handsome eyes, if bolder and harder than

they might have been if life itself had been less hard and bold for this

woman of the desert.

That it _had_ been hard was told by the cold, steady gaze of the dark

eyes; by the worn line of the cheek, and by the half contemptuous, half

tolerant set of thin lips that ought still to be full, and curved, and

red.

As she glanced over at the stranger, when both the boys were out of the

room, he left his seat and came down to the counter. He was taller than

she had thought, she noted, and very slender. Despite this latter fact,

however, he gave an impression of more than usual strength and activity.

“He’d be one blame hard man to down,” she thought, in the instant before

he was leaning upon the counter, tendering the price of his meal.

“This must be a mighty uncomfortable life for a woman,” he said in a

matter of fact way, watching her register the payment.

“Mebby,” she answered, shortly. He spoke again, with a sort of gentle

persistence.

“I shouldn’t think you’d care much about it?” There was a questioning

quality in his voice, that Mrs. Hallard felt would presently win an

answer, whether she would or no. She went on “ridding up” the counter,

and set a bottle of “square-face” back on the shelf behind her, with

rather unnecessary energy.

“Don’t know as my caring about it would make any difference,” she

finally said. “Leastways it never made none to me, an’ I guess it

needn’t to nobody else.” This last was said with some significance of

emphasis.

“I know,” the stranger spoke half absently. “But I’d have thought,” he

continued, looking up, “that you would have preferred to keep to the

range.”

A startled look came into the hard black eyes.

“What do you mean?” Kate Hallard cried. “What do _you_ know about the

range? Who be you, anyway?”

“Did you sell it?” the stranger persisted, ignoring her questions.

“Sell it!” she burst out, shrilly. “If you know anything about it, you

know I never got a chance to sell it. It melted; it never got to be

mine.”

Her voice had risen until the sound brought Sing Fat in from the kitchen

to observe. Seeing this, she lowered it.

“Look a’ here, Mister,” she said, sharply, “If you’re as wise as you’re

tryin’ to make out, you know how I got done outer the range.”

“I honestly don’t know,” was the reply. “I found your deed, and I’ve

been hunting you up to give it to you.”

She stared at him, in a sort of awe.

“You found that deed?” she whispered.

“Yes; I have it. But how did you lose the property?”

She left off her desultory arranging of bottles, and leaned toward him,

across the counter.

“Hallard bought the range off’n an Easterner named Oliphant,” she began.

“He was goin’ to stock it, an’ then you’d never a’ seen me here. He’s

got the deed all square, an’ he leaves it with me till he goes down to

Phoenix to record it. Then he goes and gits killed bustin’ an outlaw

horse fer Hod Granger, and leaves me to manage fer myself.”

The stranger uttered a little murmur of sympathy.

“But you had the deed,” he suggested, as Mrs. Hallard seemed lost in

thought.

“Oh, yes! I had it all right. But I give it to Frank Arnold to record

fer me. He was goin’ down to Phoenix, an’ I guess they was some hoodoo

onto it; fer Frank, he got killed too—got killed in a cloudburst—an’

when they found his body every bone in it was broke an’ they was hardly

a rag onto it. So the deed was lost.”

“But surely this man Oliphant would have made it right for you?”

“Would he though? That’s where you ain’t guessin’ right.” Mrs. Hallard’s

laugh had no mirth in it.

“That’s what they told me,” she said. “An’ so I see a lawyer, an’ he

undertakes to write Oliphant, that’s gone back east. But after a spell

he comes an’ tells me the sneakin’ thief’s gone an’ sold that prop’ty

twice, an’ cleared out. Think o’ that, will you, an’ him a old, old

man.... Out here fer his health, he was. Lord! if he don’t need a hotter

climate ’n even this is.”

“Was the second deed recorded?”

“You bet your life it was. The man that’d bought it saw to that, an’ he

didn’t have the luck to git killed, neither.”

“I must say he tried to act decent, though,” Mrs. Hallard added, “but o’

course he’d paid his money fer the prop’ty, same ’s Ed Hallard did, an’

Ed, he paid twelve thousand.”

“Yes, I know.” The stranger had the deed in his hand. “What did the man

do for you?” he asked.

“Well: not much, but mebby he wouldn’t a’ done that if it hadn’t bin fer

Mr. Westcott—”

“_Who_ did you say?” The stranger’s gentle voice suddenly sharpened to

keen interest.

“Ash Westcott. He was my lawyer,” Mrs. Hallard explained.

“It was he who told you about the second sale?”

“Sure! How else ’d I know?”

“I see.” He stood pondering her story until at last she took up the tale

again.

“Mr. Westcott—he talked it over with the man that bought it. I didn’t

have nothin’ but my word to back me; an’ as he told me, I really

couldn’t make a claim, an’ I didn’t have no case to go after Oliphant

with. But the other feller he give me three hundred dollars fer a quit

claim, an’ that set me up here.”

“You gave a quit claim?”

“Just to make the man feel easy. Westcott said it’d be the best way. He

was mighty kind about raisin’ the money fer me. I hadn’t a red after I’d

settled up Ed’s debts an’ small matters.”

“Here’s your deed.”

She took it, eagerly, and they pored over it together. The stranger

pointed to a signature at the end of the acknowledgment.

“Do you know that man?” he asked.

She studied the name. “Never hearn of him,” she said, “What’s he got to

do with it?”

“He was the notary before whom the deed was acknowledged,” was the

reply. “If we could get hold of him we might learn something, and I

think it would pay you to try to find out something from Oliphant.”

“I don’t know where he is,” was the bitter response, “an’ if I did, I

tell you I ain’t got a cent to do anything with. I ain’t more ’n makin’

a livin’ here.”

“I guess that could be fixed,” the stranger said. “I’ve got some.”

She looked him over, fixedly, with her black eyes.

“An’ where do you come in?” she demanded.

He laughed, ever so gently.

“I’m not figuring about that,” he answered. “But if I were you, and

could get hold of the money to do it, I’d try and see this thing

through; and,” he added, significantly, “I guess I’d hunt up some other

lawyer than this Mr. Westcott.”

He met her gaze without hesitation.

“There’s some folks does say Westcott’s sharp,” she said, slowly. “Be

you one of ’em?”

The man smiled, without speaking.

“I don’t believe it,” Kate Hallard mused. “He wouldn’t dare. Besides,”

she added, after a little thought, “he’d a known he was fair skinnin’

me, and he was the one tried to see to it I had a little money out’n it.

He wouldn’t a’ taken my last nickel.”

A strange look came into the man’s face. “Maybe he didn’t spend much

time reflecting on that,” he said, slowly. “Anyway, if I were you I’d

see about it, and I guess the money can be found.”

“You ain’t told me yet who you be,” Kate Hallard remarked, studying him

narrowly.

“My name is Gabriel Gard.”

“Well, Mister Gabriel Gard,” she said, “I never hearn of _you_ before,

an’ I ain’t sure I understand as well ’s I wanter before I make any

deals.”

“You can trust me,” Gard said, simply, meeting her eyes.

“And this Westcott,” she exclaimed, sharply, “If he’s done me so! If he

has—”

She gripped the counter, her teeth showing, savagely.

“Easy!” said Gard quietly, “Better keep cool. The man ain’t worth riling

yourself up over. Besides, I believe we can do something, with this.”

He touched the deed, and she picked it up again.

“I want to try to get hold of Oliphant,” he began, outlining his plan,

“and this notary, Arthur Sawyer.”

Kate Hallard regarded him with an unwonted expression of mingled

helplessness and perplexity.

“Oliphant’s gone back east as I said,” she answered, “An’ this here

Sawyer ’s new to me. I never knew nothing about him.”

Gard stood considering, a long sequence of unexpected difficulties

developing itself before his mind. He had found the Hallard deed among

the deputy’s papers, and had kept it carefully, against such time as he

could restore it to the owner. His first act after leaving Broome, when

the pair reached the railroad track, had been to go to Yuma. Here he

acquired the habiliments of civilization, and found a temporary home for

Jinny. He had stopped in Tucson long enough to file his claim there, and

then set about finding the Edward Hallard to whom the deed referred. It

was a matter of a fortnight before his inquiries revealed the fact of Ed

Hallard’s death, and the whereabouts of his widow. Now he had no way of

judging how long it might be before he could strike the trail of this

unknown Arthur Sawyer who had taken the acknowledgment of the deed.

In any event, he realized that the delay meant postponement of certain

cherished plans of his own; perhaps danger to them. He had met a man at

Yuma, and another in Tucson, who had known him as Barker, and though

they had not recognized him, so greatly was he changed, still he could

not ignore the possibility that any day someone might remember him.

Until his plans were perfected, the territory was perilous ground for

him.

He frowned a moment, lost in thought; then he squared his shoulders and

met Mrs. Hallard’s gaze with eyes that were full of steady peace. He had

made up his mind. His own matters must wait until he had straightened

out this woman’s tangle of wrong.

“We’ve got to find this man Sawyer,” he repeated, “And I hardly know

where to begin trailing him. We’ve got to get hold of Westcott, too; you

say he’s at Tucson?”

“He lives there,” was the reply; “or did last I knew. I ain’t heard from

him in a long time now. No need to.”

“Well: I guess the best thing to do first, is to write to him. You tell

him you’ve found your deed: no need to say how. We’ll see what he’s got

to say, and—” There was the least perceptible hesitation, “if he comes

up here, and you want me to,” he continued evenly, “I’ll talk with him

for you.”

Mrs. Hallard looked relieved.

“You’re mighty good,” she cried, “Fact is I’m afraid ... you see, I....”

The outer door was pushed open and a big Mexican vaquero put in his

head.

“What’s up, Manuel?” Mrs. Hallard asked.

The vaquero hesitated: “_No mas_ supper?” he said, tentatively.

“Supper all right,” was the reply. “You’re late, Manuel. What you doin’

off the range?”

The Mexican made a laughing gesture, crooking up his elbow. Mrs. Hallard

frowned, noting his condition.

“You don’t git no booze here,” she said, “You’ve had enough. Fat’ll

bring you some coffee an’ you eat a meal an’ git back on the range. You

had trouble enough last time, I should think.”

The fellow sat down, shamefacedly, and Sing Fat came in to serve him. A

moment later another customer entered.

“That’s always the way it goes,” Kate Hallard commented, “One straggler

always brings another. They’ll come dribblin’ in now, one at a time,

till closin’-time.... But I say, Mr. Gabriel Gard, don’t you go thinkin’

I don’t appreciate what you’ve done. I’ll write Westcott like you say,

an’ mebby it’ll come out all right; but I ain’t much hopeful of it.

Things don’t, much, outside o’ story books.”

The hard look was in her face again. Gard met it with his steady smile.

“You watch this one come out right,” said he. “I guess things mostly are

right, if we could see ’em straight.” He was turning toward the door.

“We’re liable sometimes to pick ’em up by the wrong end,” he added.

“We’ll find out which is the right end of this before we lift it, and

then—” the smile deepened, and included the dark eyes—“Then we’ll lift,”

he called back as he closed the door behind him.

Sylvania’s one business street was lighted only by the stars, and the

feebler rays that shone from a few illuminated windows. In the yellow

glare from one of these a group of cowboys were dismounting by the rail

of Jim Bracton’s Happy Family Saloon.

“Howdy, Stranger,” one of them called, as he stumbled against Gard on

reaching the ground, “Excuse _me_.”

He glanced a second time at Gard’s face and smiled, genially. “Thinkin’

o’ minglin’ up in this mad whirl?” he asked, “Come on.” And together

they entered the precincts of the Happy Family.