The Quicksands
Beulah was too perfect of body, too sound of health, not to revel in
such a dawn as swept across the flats next morning. The sun caressed
her throat, her bare head, the uplifted face. As the tender light of
daybreak was in the hills, so there was a lilt in her heart that found
expression in her voice, her buoyant footsteps, and the shine of her
eyes. She had slept soundly in Beaudry's blankets while he had lain
down in his slicker on the other side of the fire. Already she was
quite herself again. The hours of agony in the pit were obliterated.
Life was a wholly joyous and beautiful adventure.
She turned back to the camp where Roy was making coffee.
"Am I not to do any of the work?"
At the sound of that deep, sweet voice with its hint of a drawl the
young man looked up and smiled. "Not a bit. All you have to do is to
drink my coffee and say I'm the best cook you know."
After they had drunk the coffee and finished the sandwiches, Roy
saddled.
"They're probably over to the left. Don't you think so?" Beaudry
suggested.
"Yes."
There drifted to them the sound of two shots fired in rapid succession.
Roy fired twice in answer. They moved in the direction of the
shooting. Again the breeze brought revolver shots. This time there
were three of them.
Beaudry bad an odd feeling that this was a call for help from somebody
in difficulties. He quickened their pace. The nature of the ground, a
good deal of which was deep sand, made fast travel impossible.
"Look!" Beulah pointed forward and to the right.
At the same moment there came a shout. "Help! I'm in the quicksands."
They made out the figure of a man buried to his waist in the dry wash
of a creek. A horse stood on the farther bank of the wash. Roy
deflected toward the man, Beulah at his heels.
"He must be caught in Dead Man's Sink," the girl explained. "I've
never seen it, but I know it is somewhere near here. All my life I've
heard of it. Two Norwegians were caught here five years ago. Before
help reached them, they were lost."
"Get me a rope--quick," the man in the sand called.
"Why, it's Brad," cried Beulah.
"Yep. Saw the smoke of yore fire and got caught trying to reach you.
Can't make it alone. Thought I sure was a goner. You'll have to
hurry."
Already Roy was taking the riata from its place below the saddle-horn.
From the edge of the wash he made a cast toward the man in the
quicksands. The loop fell short.
"You'll have to get into the bed of the stream," suggested Beulah.
Beaudry moved across the sand a few steps and tried again. The
distance was still too great.
Already he was beginning to bog down. The soles of his shoes
disappeared in the treacherous sand. When he moved it seemed to him
that some monster was sucking at him from below. As he dragged his
feet from the sand the sunken tracks filled with mud. He felt the
quiver of the river-bed trembling at his weight.
Roy turned to Beulah, the old familiar cold chill traveling up his
spine to the roots of his hair. "It won't bear me up. I'm going
down," he quavered.
"Let me go, then. I'm lighter," she said eagerly.
She made the proposal in all good faith, with no thought of reflecting
on his courage, but it stung her lover like a slap in the face.
"Hurry with that rope!" Charlton sang across. "I'm sinking fast."
"Is there any way for Miss Rutherford to get over to your horse?" asked
Roy quickly.
"She can cross the wash two hundred yards below here. It's perfectly
safe."
As Roy plunged forward, he gave Beulah orders without turning his head.
"You hear, dear. Run down and get across. But go over very carefully.
If you come to a bad place, go back at once. When you get over tie
Charlton's rope to his saddle-horn and throw him the looped end. The
horse will drag him out."
The young woman was off on the run before he had half finished.
Once more Roy coiled and threw the rope. Charlton caught the loop,
slipped it over his head, and tightened it under his arms.
"All right. Pull!" he ordered.
Beaudry had no footing to brace himself. Already he was ankle-deep in
the quicksand. It flashed across his mind that he could not fight his
own way out without abandoning Charlton. For one panicky moment he was
mad to get back to solid ground himself. The next he was tugging with
all the strength of his arms at the rope.
"Keep on the job!" encouraged Charlton. "You're pulling my body over a
little so that the weight is on new sand. If Beulah gets here in time,
I'll make it."
Roy pulled till his muscles ached. His own feet were sliding slowly
from under him. The water-bubbles that oozed out of the sand were now
almost at his high boot-tops. It was too late to think of retreat. He
must go through whether he wanted to or not.
He cast one look down the dry river-bed. Beulah was just picking her
way across. She might get over in time to save Charlton, but before
they made it back across to him, he would be lost.
He wanted to scream aloud to her his urgent need, to beg her, for
Heaven's sake, to hurry. The futility of it he knew. She was already
running with the knowledge to wing her feet that a man's life hung in
the balance. Besides, Charlton was not shrieking his fears out. He
was calling cheerful words of hope across the quaking morass of sand
that separated them. There was no use in making a gibbering idiot of
one's self. Beaudry clenched his jaws tight on the cries that rose
like a thermometer of terror in his throat.
With every ounce of strength that was in him he fought, meanwhile, for
the life of the man at the other end of the rope. Before Beulah
reached Charlton, Roy was in deeper than his knees. He shut his eyes
and pulled like a machine. It seemed an eternity before Charlton
called to him to let go the rope.
A new phase of his danger seared like a flame across the brain of
Beaudry. He had dragged himself from a perpendicular position. As
soon as he let loose of the rope he would begin to sink forward. This
would reduce materially the time before his face would sink into the
sand.
Why not hang on and let the horse drag him out, too? He had as much
right to live as Charlton. Was there any law of justice that forced
him to throw away the rope that was his only hope?
But he knew the tough little cowpony could not drag two heavy men from
the quicksands at the same time. If he held tight, Charlton, too,
would be sacrificed. His fingers opened.
Roy watched the struggle on the opposite side of the wash. Charlton
was in almost to his arm-pits. The horse braced its feet and pulled.
Beulah, astride the saddle, urged it to the task again and again. At
first by imperceptible gains, then inch by inch, the man was dragged
from the mire that fought with a thousand clinging tentacles for its
prey.
Not till Charlton was safe on the bank did Beulah realize the peril of
Beaudry. One glance across the river showed her that he was sliding
face downward to a shifting grave. With an anguished little cry she
released the rope from Charlton's body, flung herself to the saddle
again, and dashed down the bank of the creek.
Roy lost count of time. His face was sliding down toward the sand.
Soon his mouth and nostrils would be stopped. He believed that it was
a question of minutes with him.
Came the swift pounding of hoofs and Beulah's clear, ringing voice.
"Hold your hands straight out, Roy."
His back was toward her, so that he did not see what she meant to do.
But he obeyed blindly. With a wrench first one hand and then the other
came free from the sand and wavered into the air heavily. A rope sang,
dropped over his arms and head, tightened with a jerk around his waist.
Two monsters seemed to be trying to tear him in two. A savage wrench
of pain went through him jaggedly. At short intervals this was
repeated.
In spite of the suction of the muddy sand he felt its clutch giving
way. It loosened a little here, a little there. His body began to
move. After a long tug he came out at last with a rush. But he left
his high cowpuncher's boots behind. They remained buried out of sight
in the sand. He had literally been dragged out of them.
Roy felt himself pulled shoreward. From across the quicksands came
Charlton's whoop of triumph. Presently Beulah was stooping over him
with tender little cries of woe and joy.
He looked at her with a wan, tired smile. "I didn't think you'd make
it in time." In a moment he added: "I was horribly afraid. God, it
was awful!"
"Of course. Who wouldn't have been?" She dismissed his confession as
of no importance. "But it's all over now. I want to hug you tight to
make sure you're here, boy."
"There's no law against it," he said with feeble humor.
"No, but--" With a queer little laugh she glanced across the river
toward her former lover. "I don't think I had better."
Charlton joined them a few minutes later. He went straight to Roy and
offered his hand.
"The feud stuff is off, Mr. Beaudry. Beulah will tell you that I
started in to make you trouble. Well, there's nothing doing in that
line. I can't fight the man who saved my life at the risk of his own."
"Oh, well!" Roy blushed. "I just threw you a rope."
"You bogged down some," Charlton returned dryly. "I've known men who
would have thought several times before throwing that rope from where
you did. They would have hated to lose their boots."
Beulah's eyes shone. "Oh, Brad, I'm so glad. I do want you two to be
friends."
"Do you?" As he looked at her, the eyes of the young hillman softened.
He guessed pretty accurately the state of her feelings. Beaudry had
won and he had lost. Well, he was going to be a good loser this time.
"What you want goes with me this time, Boots. The way you yanked me
out of the sinks was painful, but thorough. I'll be a friend to Mr.
Beaudry if he is of the same opinion as you. And I'll dance at his
wedding when it comes off."
She cried out at that, but Charlton noticed that she made no denial.
Neither did Roy. He confined his remarks to the previous question, and
said that he would be very glad of Charlton's friendship.
"Good enough. Then I reckon we better light out for camp with the glad
news that Beulah has been found. You can tell me all about it on the
way," the hillman suggested.
Beulah dropped from her horse ten minutes later into the arms of Ned
Rutherford. Quite unexpectedly to himself, that young man found
himself filled with emotion. He caught his sister in his arms and held
her as if he never intended to let the sobbing girl go. His own voice
was not at all steady.
"Boots--Boots . . . Honey-bug . . . Where you-all been?" he asked,
choking up suddenly.