We can all remember certain experiences that fill us with incredulity even
while we admit that the facts could be proved before a jury of twelve men.
So Casey Ryan, having lost his outfit and come so near to death that he
could barely keep his feet under him, walked into a tent and stood there
thinking it couldn't be true.
A folding camp chair stood near the opening, and Casey sat down from sheer
weakness while he looked about him. The tent was a twelve-by-fourteen,
which is a bit larger than one usually carries in a pack outfit. It had a
canvas floor soiled in strips where the most walking had been done, but
white under table and beds, which proved its newness. Casey was not
accustomed to seeing tents floored with canvas, and he stared at it for a
full half-minute before his eyes went to other things.
There was a folding camp table of the kind shown in the window display of
sporting-goods stores, but which seasoned campers find too wobbly for
actual comfort. The varnish still shone on legs and braces, which helped
to prove its newness. There was a two-burner oil stove with an
enamel-rimmed oven that was distinctly out of place in that country and
yet harmonized perfectly with the tent and furnishings. The dishes were
white enamel of aluminum, and there were boxes piled upon boxes, the
labels proclaiming canned things too expensive for ordinary eating. Two
spring cots with new blankets and white-cased pillows stood against the
tent wall, and beneath each cot sat two yellow pigskin suitcases with
straps and brass buckles. They would have been perfectly natural in a
Pullman sleeper, but even in his present stress Casey snorted disdainfully
at sight of them here.
Things were tumbled about in the disorder of inexperienced campers, but
everything was very new and clean except an array of dishes on the table,
which told Casey that one man had eaten at least three meals without
washing his dishes or putting away his surplus of food. Casey had eaten
nothing at all after that one toasted rabbit which he had choked down on
the evening when he gave up hope of finding the burros. He got up and
staggered stiffly to the table and picked up a piece of burned biscuit,
hard as flint.
While he mumbled a fragment of that he looked into various half-filled
cans, setting them one by one in a compact group on the table corner;
which was habit rather than conscious thought. Poisonous ptomaine lurked
in every one of them, which was a shame, since he had to discard half a
can of preserved peaches, half a can of roast beef, half a can of
asparagus tips, a can of chicken soup scarcely touched and two thirds of a
can of sweet potatoes. He salvaged a can of ripe olives which he thought
was good, a can of India relish and a can of sweet gherkins (both of the
fifty-seven varieties). You will see what I meant when I spoke of
expensive camp food.
There was cold coffee in a nickel percolater, and Casey poured himself a
cup, knowing well the risk of eating much just at first. It was while he
was unscrewing the top of the glass jar that held the sugar that he first
noticed the paper. It was folded and thrust into the sugar jar, and Casey
pulled it out and held it crumpled in his hand while he sweetened and
drank the coffee, forcing himself to take it slowly. When the cup was
empty to the last drop he went over and sat down on the edge of a spring
cot and unfolded the note. What he read surprised him a great deal and
puzzled him more. I leave it to you to judge why.
"I saw it again last night in a different place. The last horse died
yesterday down the canyon. You can have the outfit. I'm going to beat
it out of here while the going's good. Fred."
"That's mighty damn funny," Casey muttered thickly. "You can--ask--" He
lay back luxuriously, with his head on the white pillow and closed his
eyes. The reaction from struggling to live had set in with the assurance
of his safety. He slept heavily, refreshingly.
He awoke to the craving for food, and immediately started a small fire
outside and boiled coffee in a nice new aluminum pail that held two quarts
and had an ornamental cover. The oil stove he dismissed from his mind with
a snort of contempt. And because nearly everything he saw was catalogued
in his mind as a luxury, he opened cans somewhat extravagantly and dined
off strange, delectable foods to which his palate was unaccustomed. He
still thought it was mighty queer, but that did not impair his appetite.
Afterwards he went out to look after William, remembering that horses were
said to have died in this place. William was almost within kicking
distance of the spring, as if he meant to keep an eye upon the water
supply even though that involved browsing off brush instead of wandering
down to good grass below the camp.
Casey knelt stiffly and drank from the spring, laving his face and head
afterward as if he never would get enough of the luxury of being wet and
cool. He rose and stood looking at William for a few minutes, then took
the lead rope and tied him to a juniper that stood near the spring. The
note had said that the last horse died down the canyon, the implication of
mystery lying heavy behind the words.
Casey went back to the tent and read the note through again twice,
studying each word as if he hoped to twist some added information out of
it. It sounded as though the writer had expected his partner back from
some trip and had left the note for him, since he had not considered it
necessary to explain what it was that he had seen again in a different
place. Casey wondered if it might not have been that strange light which
he himself had followed. Whatever it was, the fellow had not liked it. His
going had all the earmarks of flight.
Well, then, why had the last horse died down the canyon? Casey decided
that he would go and see, though he was not hankering for exercise that
day. He took a long drink of water, somewhat shamefacedly filled a new
canteen that lay on a pile of odds and ends near the tent door, and
started down the canyon. It couldn't be far, but he might want a drink
before he got back, and Casey had had enough of thirst.
He was not long in finding the horse that had died, and in fact all the
horses that had died. There had been four, and the manner of their death
was not in the least mysterious. They had been staked out to graze in a
luxurious patch of loco weed, which is reason enough why any horse should
die.
Of course, no man save an unmitigated tenderfoot would picket a horse on
loco, which looks very much like wild peavine and is known the West over
as the deadliest weed that grows. A little of it mixed with a diet of
grass will drive horses and cattle insane, and there is no authentic case
of recovery, that I ever heard, once the infection is complete. A lot of
it will kill,--and these poor beasts had actually been staked out to graze
upon it, I suppose because it looked nice and green, and the horses
liked it.
The performance matched very well the enamel-trimmed oil stove and the
tinned dainties and the expensive suitcases. Casey went back to camp
feeling as though he had stumbled upon a picnic of feeble-minded persons.
He wondered what in hell two men of such a type could be doing out there,
a hundred miles and more from an ice-cream soda and a barber's chair. He
wondered too how "Fred" had expected to get himself across that hundred
miles and more of dry desert country. He must certainly be afoot, and the
camp itself showed no sign of an emergency outfit having been assembled
from its furnishings.
Casey made sure of that, inspecting first the bedding and food and then
the cooking utensils. Everything was complete--lavishly so--for two men
who loved comfort. Even their sweaters were there; and Casey knew they
must have discovered that the nights can be cool even though the days are
hot, in that altitude. And there were two canteens of the size usually
carried by hikers.
Casey was so worried that he could not properly enjoy his supper of pâté
de foi gras and crackers, with pork and beans, plum pudding--eaten as
cake--and spiced figs and coffee. That night he turned over on his
spring-cot bed as often as if he had been lying on nettles, and when he
did sleep he dreamed horribly.
Next morning he set out with William and an emergency camp outfit to trace
if he could the missing men. The great outdoors of Nevada is not kind to
such as these, and Casey had too lately suffered to think with easy-going
optimism that they would manage somehow. They would die if they were left
to shift for themselves, and Casey could not pretend that he did not know
it.
But there was a difficulty in rescuing them, just as there had been in
rescuing the burros. Casey could not find their tracks, and so could not
follow them. He and William hunted the canyon from top to bottom and
ranged far out on the valley floor without discovering anything that could
be called the track of a man. Which was strange, too, in a country where
footprints are held for a long, long while by the soil,--as souvenirs of
man's passing, perhaps.
So it transpired that Casey at length returned to the new tent just below
the spring in the nameless canyon beyond Crazy Woman Lake. Chipmunks had
invaded the place and feasted upon an opened package of sweet crackers,
but otherwise the tent had been left inviolate. Neither Fred nor his
partner had returned. Wherefore Casey opened more cans and "made himself
to home," as he naively put it.
He was impatient to continue his journey, but since he had nothing of his
own except William, he meant to beg or buy a few things from this camp, if
either of the owners showed up. Meantime he could be comfortable, since it
is tacitly understood in the open land that a wayfarer may claim
hospitality of any man, with or without that man's knowledge. He is
expected to keep the camp clean, to leave firewood and to take nothing
away with him except what is absolutely necessary to insure his getting
safely to the next stopping place. Casey knew well the law, and he busied
himself in setting the camp in order while he waited.
But when five days and nights had slipped into history and he and William
were still in sole possession, Casey began to take another viewpoint. Fred
might possibly have left in a flying machine. The partner might have
decamped permanently before Fred lost his nerve. Several things might have
happened which would leave this particular camp and contents without a
claimant. Casey studied the matter for awhile and then pulled the four
suitcases from beneath the cots and proceeded to investigate. The first
one that he opened had a note folded and addressed to Fred. Casey read it
through without the slightest compunction. The handwriting was different
from that of the first note, hurried and scrawly, the words connected with
faint lines. Here is what Fred's partner had written:
"Dear Fred: Don't blame me for leaving you. A man that carries the
grouch you do don't need company. I'm fed up on solitude, and I don't like
the feel of things here. My staying won't help your lung a damn bit and if
you want anything you can hunt up the men that carry the light. Maybe they
are the ones that are killing off the horses. Any way, you can wash your
own dishes from now on. It will do you good. If I had of known you were
the crab you are I'll say I would never have come. You are welcome to my
share of the outfit. I hope some one shoots me and puts me out of my
misery quick if I ever show symptoms of wanting to camp out again. I am
going now because if I stayed I'd change your map for you so your own
looking glass wouldn't know you. I'll say you are some nut.
Art."
Casey had to take a fresh chew of tobacco before his brain would settle
down and he could think clearly. Then he observed that it was a damn funny
combination and you could ask anybody. After that he began to realize that
he was heir to a fine assortment of canned delicacies and an oil stove and
four suitcases filled, he hoped, with good clothes. Not omitting
possession of two spring cots and several pairs of high-grade blankets,
and two sweaters and Lord knows what all.
Those suitcases were enough to make any man sit and bite his nails,
wondering if he were crazy. Fred and Art had evidently fitted their
wardrobe to their ideas of a summer camp with dancing pavilion and plenty
of hammocks in the immediate neighborhood. There were white flannel
trousers and white canvas shoes and white silk socks, and fine ties and
handkerchiefs and things. There were striped silk shirts which made Casey
grin and think how tickled Injun Jim would be with them,--or one or two of
them; Casey had no intention of laying them all on the altar of diplomacy.
There was an assortment of apparel in those suitcases that would qualify
any man as porch hound at Del Monte. And Casey Ryan, if you please, had
fallen heir to the lot!
He dressed himself in white flannels with a silk shirt of delf blue and
pale green stripes, and wished that there was a looking-glass in camp
large enough to reflect all of him at once. Then, because his beard
stubble did not harmonize, he shaved with one of the safety razors he
found.
After that he sorted and packed a careful wardrobe, and stored strange
food into two canvas kyacks. And the next evening he tied the tent flaps
carefully and fared forth with William to find the camp of Injun Jim and
see if his dream would come true.