IN THE HOME OF CLIFF-DWELLERS
Those remaining ten minutes tried all that there was of endurance in
Virginia Page. Often Norton, bidding her wait a moment, climbed on to
some narrow ledge above her and, drawing the rope steadily through his
hands, gave her what aid he could; often, clinging with hand and foot
she thought breathlessly of the steep fall of cliff which the darkness
hid from her eyes, but which grew ever steeper in her mind as she
struggled on. He had said it would be easier in daylight; she wondered
if after all it would not have been more difficult could she have seen
just what were the chances she was taking at every moment. But more
and more she came to have utter faith in the quiet man going on before
her, and in the piece of rope which stretched taut between them.
"And now," said Norton at last, when once more he had drawn her up to
him and they stood close together upon a narrow ledge, "we've got a
good, safe trail under foot. Good news, eh?"
But as he moved on now he kept her hand locked tight in his own. Their
"good, safe trail" was a rough ledge running almost horizontally along
the cliffside, its trend scarcely perceptibly upward. Within twenty
steps it led them into a wide, V-shaped fissure in the rocks. Then
came a sort of cup in a nest of rugged peaks, its bottom filled with
imprisoned soil worn from the spires above. As Norton, relinquishing
her hand, went forward swiftly she heard a man's voice saying weakly:
"That you, Rod?"
"I came as soon as I could, Brocky." Norton, standing close to a big
outjutting boulder upon the far side of the cup, was bending over the
cattleman. "How are you making out, old man?"
"I've sure been having one hell of a nice little party," grunted Brocky
Lane faintly. "A man's so damn close to heaven on these mountain
tops. . . . Who's that?"
Virginia came forward quickly and went down on her knees at Lane's side.
"I'm Dr. Page," she said quietly. "Now if you'll tell me where you're
hit . . . and if Mr. Norton will get me some sort of a light. A fire
will have to do. . . ."
Another little grunt came from Brocky Lane's tortured lips, this time a
wordless expression of his unmeasured amazement.
"I didn't want Patten in on this," Norton explained. "Miss Page is a
doctor; just got into San Juan to-day. She's a cousin of Engle. And
she knows her business a whole lot better than Patten does, besides."
"Will you get the fire started immediately, Mr. Norton?" asked Virginia
somewhat sharply. "Mr. Lane has waited long enough as it is."
"I'll be damned!" said Brocky Lane weakly. And then, more weakly
still, in a voice which broke despite a manful effort to make it both
steady and careless, "I never cuss like that unless I'm delerious,
anyhow I never cuss when there's a lady. . . ."
"If you'll keep perfectly still," Virginia admonished him quickly,
"I'll do all the talking that is necessary. Where is the wound?"
"You don't have to have a light, do you?" Brocky insisted on being
informed. "You see, we can't have it. Where'm I hurt, you want to
know? Mostly right here in my side."
Virginia's hands found the rude bandage, damp and sticky.
"It's nonsense about not having a light," she said, turning toward
Norton.
"No," said the wounded man. "Nonsense nothing, is it Rod? How're we
going to have a fire when my matches are all gone and Rod's
matches. . . ."
"Mr. Norton," Virginia cut in crisply, "in spite of your friend's talk
and in spite of the bluff he is putting up he is pretty badly hurt.
You give me some sort of a light, I don't care if they see it down at
San Juan, or you shoulder the responsibility. Which is it?"
Norton turned and was gone in the darkness; to Virginia's eyes it
seemed that he was swallowed up by the cliff's themselves, as though
they had opened and accepted him and closed after him. She supposed
that he had gone to seek what scanty dry fuel one might find here. But
in a moment he was back carrying a lighted lantern.
"Look here, Rod. . . ." expostulated Brocky.
"Shut up, Brocky," answered Norton quietly. And, passing the lantern
to the girl. "If you'll carry that I'll carry Brocky. It's only a few
steps and I won't hurt him. We can make him more comfortable there;
and besides, we can't leave him out here in the sun to-morrow."
Somewhat mystified, Virginia took the lantern and her own surgical case
from the sheriff and watched him stoop and gather the tall form of his
friend into his arms. Then going the way he indicated, straight across
the tiny flat, she lighted the way. She heard the wounded man groan
once; then, his teeth set to guard his lips, Brocky was silent.
After a dozen steps she came to a steep-sided, narrow chasm giving
passageway not six feet wide which twisted this way and that before her.
"Look out," called Norton sharply. "Watch where you step now. Go
slow."
Virginia swinging her lantern up shoulder-high, looking ahead, grew
instantly stock-still, a shiver tingling along her spine. The narrow
defile through which she had passed had led out of the ring of peaks
and now abruptly debouched into nothingness. As she had turned with
the twisting passageway, expecting to see another wall of rock before
her, she saw instead the sky filled with stars. She stood almost at
the edge of a sheer precipice.
"Throw the light to the left now," commanded Norton. "See what looks
like the entrance to a cave? We go in there."
She walked on, moving slowly, warily, a little faint from the one
startled view before her, her body tight pressed to the rocks upon the
left, her feet only a pace from the edge of the cliff. Now she saw the
mouth of the cave, a black ragged hole just above a flat rock which
thrust itself outward so that it seemed hanging, balanced insecurely,
over the abyss. By the pale rays of the lantern she saw the fairly
smooth, gently sloping floor of the cavern; then, stooping, she passed
in, turned, and held the light for Norton.
He came on steadily, bearing his burden lightly. Still holding the
lantern for him, turning as he came closer, she saw that the cave was
lofty and wide, that it ran farther back into the mountain than her
lantern's rays could follow.
"Back there," said Norton, "you'll find blankets. I'll hold him while
you spread some out for him."
She hurried toward the farther end of the cave, came to a tumble of
blankets against the wall, dragged out two or three, spreading them
quickly. And then, while Norton was stooping to lay Brocky's limp form
down, she busied herself with her case.
"He has fainted," she said quickly. "I'd like to examine the wound
before he is conscious; it's going to hurt him. Pour me some water
into any sort of basin or cup or anything else you've got here. Then
stand by to help me if I need you. . . . Hold the lantern for me."
Swiftly, but Norton marked with what skilful fingers, she removed the
bandage and made her examination. Norton, squatting upon his heels at
her side, holding the lantern, after one frowning look at the wound,
kept his eyes fixed upon her face. Brocky Lane was near his death and
the sheriff knew it after that one look; his life lay, perhaps, in the
hands of this girl. Norton had brought her when he might have brought
Patten. Had he chosen wrongly?
He had noted her hands before; now they seemed to him the most
wonderful hands ever possessed by either man or woman, strong, sure,
quick, sensitive, utterly capable. He thought of Caleb Patten's hands,
thick, a little inclined to be flabby.
"Open that bottle," she directed coolly. "One tablet into the water.
That box has cotton and gauze in it . . . don't touch them! I want
everything clean; just open the box and set it where I can get it."
One by one she gave her directions and the man obeyed swiftly and
unquestioningly. He watched her probe the wound, saw her eyes narrow,
knew that she had made her diagnosis. As she washed the ugly hole in
the flesh and made her own bandage Brocky Lane was wincing, his eyes
again open. Both men were watching her now, the same look in each
eager pair of eyes. But until she had done and, with Norton's help,
had made Lane as comfortable as possible upon his crude bed, she gave
no answer to their mute pleading. Then she sat down upon the stone
floor, caught her knees up in her clasped hands, and looked long and
searchingly into Brocky Lane's face. The cowboy struggled with his
muscles and triumphed over them, summoning a sick grin as he muttered:
"You're mighty good to take all this trouble. . . . I'm sure a hundred
times obliged. . . ."
"And," she cut in abruptly, "you mean to tell me that you shot that man
after he had put this hole in you? And then you made him crawl out of
the brush and come to you?"
"I sure did," grunted Brocky. "And if my aim hadn't been sort of bad,
me being all upset this way, I wouldn't have just winged old Moraga
that way, either! When he's all cured up and I'm all well again. . . ."
Then he broke off and again his eyes, like Norton's, asked their
question. This time she answered it, speaking slowly and thoughtfully.
"Mr. Brocky Lane, I congratulate you on three things, your physique
first, your luck second, and third, your nerve. They are a combination
that is hard to beat. I am very much inclined to the belief that in a
month or so you'll be about as good as new."
Norton expelled a deep breath of relief; he realized suddenly that
whatever this gray-eyed, strong-handed girl had said would have had his
fullest credence. Brocky's grin grew a shade less strained.
"When you add to that combination," he muttered, "a sure-enough angel
come to doctor a man. . . ."
"Growing delirious again," laughed Virginia. "Give him a little
brandy, Mr. Norton. Then a smoke if he's dying for one. Then we'll
try to get a little sleep, all of us. You see, I had virtually no
sleep on the train last night and to-day has been a big day for me. If
I'm going to do your friend any good I've got to get three winks. And,
unless you're made out of reinforced sheet-iron, it's the same for you.
You can lie down close to Mr. Lane so that he can wake you easily if he
needs us. Now," and she rose, still smiling, but suddenly looking
unutterably weary, "where is the guest-chamber?"
She did not tell them that not only last night, but the night before
she had sat up in a day coach, saving every cent she could out of the
few dollars which were to give her and her brother a new start in the
world; there were many things which Virginia Page knew how to keep to
herself.
"This way," said Norton, taking up the lantern. "We can really make
you more comfortable than you'd think."
At the very least he could count confidently on treating her to a
surprise. She followed him for forty or fifty feet toward the end of
the cave and to an irregular hole in the side wall, through this, and
into another cave, smaller than the first, but as big as an ordinary
room. The floor was strewn with the short needles of the mountain
pine. As she turned, looking about her, she noted first another
opening in a wall suggesting still another cave; then, feeling a faint
breath of the night air on her cheek she saw a small rift in the outer
shell of rock and through it the stars thick in the sky.
"May you sleep well in Jim Galloway's hang-out," said Norton lightly.
"May you not be troubled with the ghosts of the old cliff-dwellers
whose house this was before our time. And may you always remember that
if there is anything in the world that I can do for you all you have to
do is let me know. Good night."
"Good night," she said.
He had left the lantern for her. She placed it on the floor and went
across her strange bedroom to the hole in the rock through which the
stars were shining. It seemed impossible that those stars out there
were the same stars which had shone upon her all of her life long. She
could fancy that she had gone to sleep in one world and now had
awakened in another, coming into a far, unknown territory where the
face of the earth was changed, where men were different, where life was
new. And though her body was tired her spirit did not droop. Rather
an old exhilaration was in her blood. She had stepped from an old,
outworn world into a new one, and with a quick stir of the pulses she
told herself that life was good where it was strenuous and that she was
glad that Virginia Page had come to San Juan.
"And now," she mused sleepily when at last she lay down upon heaped-up
pine-needles and drew over her the blanket Norton had brought, "I am
going to sleep in the hang-out of Jim Galloway and the old home of the
cliff-dwellers! Virginia Page, you are a downright lucky girl!"
Whereupon she blew out her lantern, smiled faintly at the stars shining
upon her, sighed wearily and went to sleep.