A BLIZZARD OF DUST
At daylight Beth was dressed as a man and surveying herself in the
mirror. She had passed a sleepless night. She was fevered, excited,
and nervous.
Her work had been admirably done. She looked no more rawly new or
youthful than scores of young tenderfeet, daily in the streets of the
camp. The stain on her face had furnished an astonishing disguise,
supported as it was by male attire. Her hair was all up in the crown
of her hat, which was set on the back of her head. It was fastened,
moreover, with pins concealed beneath the leather band. Altogether the
disguise was most successful. Beth had disappeared: a handsome young
man had been conjured in her place.
Her mare, which Billy had ordered, came promptly to the door. She
heard her arrive--and her heart stroked more madly than before.
Trembling in every limb, and treading as softly as a thief, she made
her way downstairs.
On the dining-room table was the package of lunch that Mrs. Dick had
agreed to prepare. Beth had told her she meant to take an early
morning ride and might not be back in time for breakfast. With this
bundle in hand she went out at the door, her courage all but failing at
thought of the man with the horse at the threshold. She shrank from
being seen in such an outfit.
It was too late now to retreat, however, she told herself bravely, and
out she went.
"Say, git a move, young feller," said the hostler with her pony. "I
ain't got time to play horse-post here all day."
"Thank you for being so prompt," said Beth, in a voice that was faint,
despite her efforts to be masculine, and she gave him a coin.
"I'll tie that there bundle on behind," he volunteered, less gruffly,
and Beth was glad of his assistance.
A moment later she took a gasp of breath and mounted to the seat.
Collapse of all the project had seemed imminent, but an actual feeling
of relief and security ensued when she was settled in the saddle.
"So long," said the hostler, and Beth responded manfully, "So long."
She rode out slowly, towards the one main road. A feeling of the
morning's chill assailed her, making her shiver. The noise of her
pony's hoof-beats seemed alarmingly resonant.
But nothing happened. The streets were deserted, save for a few
half-drunken wanderers, headed for the nearest saloon. On the far-off
peaks of the mountains the rosy light of sunrise faintly appeared. In
the calm of the great barren spaces, even Goldite was beautiful at last.
A sense of exhilaration pervaded Beth's youthful being. She was glad
of what she had done. It was joyous, it was splendid, this absolute
freedom in all this stern old world!
The road wound crookedly up a hill, as it left the streets of the town
behind. The scattered tents extended for a mile in this direction, the
squares of silent canvas, like so many dice, cast on the slopes by a
careless fate that had cast man with them in the struggle.
Beth and her pony finally topped the hill, to be met by a sea of
mountains out beyond. Up and down these mighty billows of the earth
the highway meandered, leading onward and southward through the desert.
The mare was urged to a gallop, down an easy slope, then once more she
walked as before. All the mountains in the west were rosy now, till
presently the sun was up, a golden coin, struck hot from the very mints
of God, giving one more day with its glory.
Its very first rays seemed a comfort, suggesting a welcome warmth.
Beth could have called out songs of gladness well nigh uncontainable.
She had all the big world to herself. Even the strangely twisted
clouds in the sky seemed made for her delight. They were rare in this
wonderful dome of blue and therefore things of beauty.
For an hour or more her way was plain, and to ride was a god-like
privilege. Her ease of mind was thoroughly established. What had been
the necessity for all those qualms of fear? The matter was simple,
after all.
It was ten o'clock before she ate her breakfast. She had come to the
so-called river, the only one in perhaps a hundred miles. It was quite
a respectable stream at this particular season, but spread very thinly
and widely at the ford.
By noon she was half way of her distance. The sun was hot; summer
baking of the desert had begun. Her mare was sweating profusely. She
had urged her to the top of her strength. Nevertheless she was still
in excellent condition. To the westward the sky was overcast in a
manner such as Beth had never seen, with a dark, copperous storm-head
that massed itself prodigiously above the range.
Already she had come to three branchings of the road and chosen her way
in confidence, according to Billy Stiff's directions. When she came to
a fourth, where none had been indicated, she was sure, either in
Billy's instructions, or upon his drawing, she confessed herself
somewhat uncertain. She halted and felt for the map.
It was not to be found. She had left it behind at Mrs. Dick's. Dimly
she fancied she remembered that Billy had said on the fourth branch,
keep to the right. There could be no doubt that this branch was the
fourth, howsoever out of place it appeared. She rode to the right,
and, having passed a little valley, found herself enfolded in a rolling
barrier of hills where it seemed as if the sun and rocks were of almost
equal heat.
At mid-afternoon Beth abruptly halted her pony and stared at the world
of desert mountains in confusion not unmixed with alarm. She was out
at the center of a vast level place, almost entirely devoid of
vegetation--and the road had all but disappeared. It branched once
more, and neither fork was at all well defined, despite the fact that
travel to Starlight was supposed to be reasonably heavy. She had made
some mistake. She suddenly remembered something that Billy had said
concerning a table mountain she should have passed no later than
half-past one. It had not been seen along her way. She was tired.
Weariness and the heat had broken down a little of the bright, joyous
spirit of the morning. A heart-sinking came upon her. She must turn
and ride back to--she knew not which of the branches of the road, any
one of which might have been wrongly selected.
Her mare could not be hurried now; she must last to get her to
Starlight. To add to other trifles of the moment, the bank of cloud,
so long hung motionless above the western summits, moved out across the
path of the sun and blotted out its glory with a density that would
have seemed impossible.
Scarcely had Beth fairly turned her back to the west when a wind storm
swooped upon the desert. It came as a good stiff breeze, at first,
flecking up but little of the dust. Then a sudden, ominous change
occurred. All the blue of the sky was overwhelmed, under a sudden
expansion of the copperous clouds. An eclipse-like darkness enveloped
the world, till the farthest mountains disappeared and the near-by
ranges seemed to magnify themselves as they blended with the sky.
With a sound as of an on-rushing cataclysm the actual storm, cyclonic
in all but the rotary motion, came beating down upon the startled earth
like a falling wall of air.
In less than two minutes the world, the atmosphere, everything had
ceased to be. It was a universe of dust and sand, hurtling--God knew
whither.
In the suddenness of the storm's descent upon her, Beth became
speechless with dismay. Her mare dropped her head and slowly continued
to walk. Road, hills, desert--all had disappeared. To go onward was
madness; to remain seemed certain death. Despair and horror together
gripped Beth by the heart. There was nothing in the world she could do
but to close her eyes and double low above the saddle, her hat bent
down to shield her face.
At the end of a few minutes only the frightfulness of the thing could
no longer be endured. Beth had been all but torn from her seat by the
sheer weight and impact of the wind. All the world was roaring
prodigiously. The sand and dust, driving with unimaginable velocity,
smoked past in blinding fury.
The mare had ceased to move. Beth was aware of her inertia, dimly.
She remembered at last to dismount and stand in the animal's shelter.
At length on the raging and roaring of the air-sea, crashing onward in
its tidal might, came a fearful additional sound. It was rushing
onward towards the girl with a speed incredible--a sound of shrieking,
or whistling, that changed to a swishing as if of pinions, Titanic in
size, where some monstrous winged god was blown against, his will in a
headlong course through the tumult.
Then the something went by--the whole roof of a house--from twenty
miles away. It scraped in the earth, not ten feet off from where the
pony stood--and she bolted and ran for her life.
Down went Beth, knocked over by the mare. With a hideous crash the
flying roof was hurled against a nearby pinnacle of rock. The wooden
wings split upon the immovable obstruction, and on they went as before.
The pony had disappeared, in panic that nothing could have allayed.
The storm-pall swallowed her instantly, Beth could not have seen her
had she halted a rod away. Her eyes had been opened for half a moment
only before she was flung to the earth. She was rolling now, and for
the moment was utterly powerless to rise or to halt her locomotion.
When she presently grasped at a little gray shrub, came to a halt, and
tried to stand erect, she was buffeted bodily along by the wind with no
strength in her limbs to resist.
She was blown to the big rock pinnacle on which the roof had been
divided. An eddy twisted her rudely around to the shelter, and she
flung herself down upon the earth.