NIGHT
Night skies are kind to those who love the stars; to others they
are heavy with brooding fears.
The man who was following the old road up the Cañon of Gold had made his
way a mile or more from the point where he was last seen by the Indian,
when the deepening twilight warned him of the nearness of the night. It
was evident, from the pedestrian’s irresolute movements and from his
manner of nervous doubt in selecting a spot for his camp, that not only
was he a stranger in the Cañada del Oro, but as well that he was
unaccustomed to such surroundings.
He was a young man of about twenty-two or twenty-three years--tall, but
rather slender, with a face habitually clean shaven but covered, just
now, with a stubby beard of several days’ growth. His skin, where it was
exposed, was sunburned rather than tanned that deep color so marked in
the out-of-doors men of the West. On the whole, he gave the impression,
somehow, of one but recently recovered from a serious illness; and yet
he did not appear overfatigued, though the pack which he carried was not
light and he had evidently been many hours on the road. In spite of his
rude dress and unkempt appearance due to his mode of traveling there
was, in his bearing, the unmistakable air of a man of business. But he
was that type of business man that knows something more than the daily
grind of money-making machines. His world, apparently, was not wholly a
world of factories and banks and institutions of commerce.
Forced, at last, by the approaching darkness, to decide upon some place
to spend the night, the traveler selected a spot beside the cañon creek,
a hundred yards from the road. But even after he had lowered his heavy
pack to the ground, he stood for some minutes looking anxiously about,
as if still uncertain as to the wisdom of his selection.
Nor was the man’s manner wholly that of inexperience. Suddenly, without
thought of his evening meal, or any preparation for his comfort until
the morning, he climbed again up the steep bank to the road, where he
gazed back along the way he had come and studied the mountain sides with
eyes of dread. The man was in an agony of fear. Not until it was too
dark to distinguish objects at any distance did he return to the place
where he had left his pack and set about the necessary work of preparing
his supper and making his bed.
Hurriedly, as best he could in the failing light, he gathered a supply
of wood and, after several awkward failures, succeeded in kindling a
fire. From his pack he took a small frying pan, a coffeepot, a tin cup,
and a meager supply of food. With these, and with water from the creek,
he made shift to prepare an unaccustomed meal. Several times he paused,
to stand gazing into the fire as if lost in thought. Again and again he
turned his head quickly to listen. Often with a shuddering start he
whirled to search the darkness beyond the flickering shadows, as if in
fear of what the light of his fire might bring upon him. When he had
eaten his poorly prepared supper, he spread his blankets and lay down.
There was something pitiful in the trivial and puny details of this lone
stranger’s camp in the wild Cañada del Oro. There was something sinister
in the night life that crept and crawled in the darkness about him.
There was something pathetic in the man’s lying down to sleep,
unprotected, amid such surroundings.
The mountains are very friendly to those who know them; to those who
know them not, they are grim and dreadful--when the day is gone. Night
skies are kind to those who love the stars; to others they are heavy
with brooding fears. The timid life of the wild places is good company
for those who know each voice and sound; to others every movement is a
menace, every call a voice of danger--when the sun is down.
Cowering in his blankets the man listened for a while to the strange and
fearful things that stirred in the near-by bushes, on the rocky ledges,
and on the mountain sides above. He heard the cañon voices whispering,
murmuring, moaning. The night deepened. The boisterous song of the creek
became a sullen growl. The mountain walls seemed to close in. The stars
above the peaks and ridges were lonely and far away. The camp fire, so
tiny in the gloom, burned low.
The sleeping man groaned and stirred uneasily as if in pain, and a fox
that had crept too close slipped away in startled flight. The man cried
out in his sleep, and a coyote that was following the scent of the camp
up the wind turned aside to slink into the thicket of mesquite. The man
awoke and springing to his feet stood as if at bay, and a buck that was
feeding not far away lifted his antlered head to listen with wary
alertness. From somewhere on the heights came the cry of a mountain
lion, and at the sound the night was suddenly as still as death. The man
shuddered and quickly threw more wood on the dying fire. Again he lay
down to cower in his blankets--to sleep restlessly--and to dream his
troubled dreams.
In the first faint light of the morning, a dark form might have been
seen moving stealthily down the mountain above the stranger’s camp. The
buck, with a snort of fear, leaped away, crashing through the brush. The
prowling coyote fled down the cañon. On every side the wild creatures of
the night slunk into the dense covers of manzanita and buckthorn and
cat-claw.
Silently, as the gray shadows through which he crept, Natachee the
Indian drew near the place where the white man lay. From behind a
near-by bush the Indian observed every detail of the camp. When the
form wrapped in the blanket did not stir, the Indian stole from his
sheltering screen and with soft-footed, noiseless movements, inspected
the stranger’s outfit. He even bent over the sleeping man to see his
face. The man moved--tossing an arm and muttering. Swift as a fox the
Indian slipped away; silent as a ghost he disappeared among the bushes.
The gray of the morning sky changed to saffron and rose and flaming red.
The shadowy trees and bushes assumed definite shapes. The detail of the
rocks emerged from the gloom. The man awoke.
He had just finished breakfast when he heard the sound of horse’s hoofs
on the road. With a startled cry he leaped to his feet. The Lizard was
riding toward him.
Like a hunted creature the man drew back, half crouching, as if to
escape. But it was too late. Pale and trembling he stood waiting as the
horseman drew up beside the road, on the bank above the creek, and sat
looking down upon him and his camp.