THE SPANISH SINKS
From a car window at Sleepy Cat may be seen, stretching far down into
the southwest a chain of towering peaks, usually snow-clad, that
dominate the desert in every direction for almost a hundred miles. In
two extended groups, separated by a narrow but well-defined break,
they constitute a magnificent rampart, named by Spaniards the
Superstition Mountains, and they stretch beyond the horizon to the
south, along the vast depression known locally as the Spanish Sinks.
The break on the eastern side of the chain comes about twenty miles
southwest of Sleepy Cat, and is marked on the north by the most
striking, and in some respects most majestic peak in the range--Music
Mountain; the break itself has taken the name of its earliest white
settlers, and is called Morgan's Gap. No railroad has ever yet
penetrated this southern country, despite the fact that rich mines
have been opened along these mountains, and are still being opened;
but it lies to-day in much of the condition of primitive savagery,
and lawlessness, as the word is conventionally accepted, that obtained
when the first rush was made for the Thief River gold-fields.
It is not to be understood that law is an unknown equation between
Calabasas and Thief River, or even between Calabasas and Sleepy Cat.
But as statute law it suffers so many infractions as to be hardly
recognizable in the ordinary sense. Business is done in this country;
but business must halt everywhere with its means of communication, and
in the Music Mountain country it still rests on the facilities of a
stage line. The stage line is a big and vigorous affair, a perfectly
organized railroad adjunct with the best horses, the best wagons, the
best freighting outfits that money can supply.
But this is by no means, in its civilizing effect, a railroad. A
railroad drives lawlessness before it--the Music Mountain country
still leans on stage-line law. The bullion wagons still travel the
difficult roads. They look for safety to their armed horsemen; the
four and six horse stages look to the armed guard, the wayfarer must
look to his horse--and it should be a good one; the mountain rancher
to his rifle, the cattle thief to the moonless night, the bandit to
his wits, the gunman to his holster: these include practically all of
the people that travel the Spanish Sinks, except the Morgans and the
Mormons. The Mormons looked to the Morgans for safety; the Morgans to
themselves.
For many a year the Morgans have been almost overlords of the Music
Mountain country. They own, or have laid claim to, an extended
territory in the mountains, a Spanish grant. One of the first mountain
Morgans married a Spanish girl, and during the early days, when the
Morgans were not fighting some one out of court, they were fighting
some one in court on their endless and involved titles.
But whether they won domain in lawsuit or lost it, one pearl of their
holdings they never submitted to the jurisdiction of any tribunal
other than their own arms. Morgan's Gap opens south of Music Mountain,
less than ten miles west of Calabasas. It is a narrow valley where
valleys are more precious than water--for the mountain valley means
water--and this in a country where water is much more precious than
life. And some of the best of this land at the foot of Music Mountain
was the maternal inheritance of Nan Morgan.
At Calabasas the Thief River stage line maintains completely equipped
relay barns. They are over twenty miles from Sleepy Cat, but nearly
fifty the other way from Thief River. The unequal division is not due
to what was desirable when the route was laid out, but to the limit of
what man could do in the never-conquered desert. This supplies at
Calabasas a spring, to tempt the unwary traveller still farther within
its clutches. A large number of horses are kept at Calabasas, and the
barn crews are quartered there in a company barrack. Along the low
ridges and in the shallow depressions about Calabasas Spring there are
a very few widely separated shacks, once built by freighters and
occupied by squatter outlaws to be within reach of water. This gives
the vicinity something of the appearance of a poorly sustained
prairie-dog town. And except these shacks, there is nothing between
Calabasas, Thief River, and the mountains except sunshine and alkali.
I say nothing, meaning especially nothing, in the way of a human
habitation.
But there is a queer inn at Calabasas. A pioneer Thief River
prospector, mad with thirst, fought his way across the Sinks to the
Calabasas Spring, and wandered thence one day into Sleepy Cat. In a
delirium of gratitude he ordered built at Calabasas what he termed a
hotel, to provide at that forbidden oasis for the luxurious comfort of
future thirst-mad wanderers. It was built of lumber hauled a thousand
miles, and equipped with luxuries brought three thousand--a fearsome,
rambling structure, big enough for all the prospectors in the Rocky
Mountains.
Having built this monument, creditable to his good-will rather than
his good sense, the unfortunate man went really mad, and had the sorry
distinction of being the first person to be put in the insane asylum
at Bear Dance. It had never occurred to him that any one had any title
to, or that any madder man would lay any claim to, so accursed a spot
as Calabasas. But old Duke Morgan announced in due time that the hotel
was built on Morgan land, and belonged to the Morgans. Nobody outside
a madhouse could be found to dispute with Duke Morgan a title to land
within ten miles of Morgan's Gap, and none but a lunatic would attempt
to run a hotel at Calabasas, anyway. However, a solution of the
difficulty was found: Duke's colorable title gave the cue to his
retainers in the Gap, and in time they carted away piecemeal most of
the main building, leaving for years the kitchen and the servants'
quarters adjoining it to owls, lizards, scorpions, and spiders.
Meantime, to tap the fast-developing gold-fields, the freight route
and stages had been put in, and the barns built at Calabasas. A need
naturally developed for at least one feature of a hotel--a barroom. A
newer lunatic answered the call of civilization--a man only mildly
insane stocked the kitchen range with liquors, and fitted up in a
crude way the ice-boxes--where there never was ice--serving pantries,
and other odd nooks for sleeping quarters. Here the thirsty stage
passenger, little suspecting the origin of the facilities offered him
for a drink, may choose strong drink instead of water--or rather, he
is restricted to strong drink where water might once have been
had--the spring being piped now half a mile to the barns for the
horses. And this shack, as it is locally called, run by a Mexican, is
still the inn at Calabasas. And it continues to contribute, through
its stirring annals, to the tragic history of the continental divide.
It need hardly be said that Duke Morgan laid claim also to the
Calabasas Spring. But on this the company, being a corporation, fought
him. And after somewhat less of argument and somewhat more of siege
and shooting, a compromise was reached whereby the company bought
annually at an exorbitant price all of Duke, Satterlee, and Vance
Morgan's hay, and as the Morgans had small rivers of water in the
mountains, and never, except when crowded, drank water, a _modus
vivendi_ was arranged between the claimants. The only sufferer through
this was the Mexican publican, who found every Morgan his landlord,
and demanding from him tithes over the bar. But force is usually met
with cunning, and such Morgans as would not pay in advance at
Calabasas, when thirsty, often found the half-mad publican out of
goods.
The Calabasas Inn stood in one of the loneliest canyons of the whole
seventy miles between Sleepy Cat and Thief River; it looked in its
depletion to be what it was, a sombre, mysterious, sun, wind, and
alkali beaten pile, around which no one by any chance ever saw a sign
of life. It was a ruin like those pretentious deserted structures
sometimes seen in frontier towns--relics of the wide-open days, which
stand afterward, stark and sombre, to serve as bats' nests or
blind-pigs. The inn at Calabasas looked its part--a haunt of rustlers,
a haven of nameless men, a refuge of road-agents.
The very first time de Spain made an inspection trip over the stage
line with Lefever, he was conscious of the sinister air of this lonely
building. He and Lefever had ridden down from the barn, while their
horses were being changed, to look at the place. De Spain wanted to
look over everything connected in any way, however remotely, with the
operation of his wagons, and this joint, Lefever had told him, was
where the freighters and drivers were not infrequently robbed of
their money. It was here that one of their own men, Bill McCarty, once
"scratched a man's neck" with a knife--which, Bill explained, he just
"happened" to have in his hand--for cheating at cards. Lefever pointed
out the unlucky gambler's grave as he and de Spain rode into the
canyon toward the inn.
Not a sign of any sort was displayed about the habitation. No man was
invited to enter, no man warned to keep out, none was anywhere in
sight. The stage men dismounted, threw their lines, pushed open the
front door of the house and entered a room of perhaps sixteen by
twenty feet. It had been the original barroom. A long, high,
elaborately carved mahogany bar, as much out of keeping as it possibly
could be with its surroundings, stretched across the farther side of
the room. The left end, as they faced the bar, was brought around to
escape a small window opening on a court or patio to the rear of the
room. Back of the bar itself, about midway, a low door in the bare
wall gave entrance to a rear room. Aside from this big, queer-looking
piece of mahogany, the low window at the left end of it, and the low
door at the back, the room presented nothing but walls. Two windows
flanking the front door helped to light it, but not a mirror, picture,
chair, table, bottle, or glass was to be seen. De Spain covered every
feature of the interior at a glance. "Quiet around here, John," he
remarked casually.
"This is the quietest place in the Rocky Mountains most of the
time. But when it is noisy, believe me, it is noisy. Look at the
bullet-holes in the walls."
"The old story," remarked de Spain, inspecting with mild-mannered
interest the punctured plastering, "they always shoot high."
He walked over to the left end of the bar, noting the hard usage shown
by the ornate mahogany, and spreading his hands wide open, palms down,
on the face of it, glanced at the low window on his left, opening on
the gravelled patio. He peered, in the semidarkness, at the battered
door behind the bar.
"Henry," observed Lefever, "if you are looking for a drink, it would
only be fair, as well as politic, to call the Mexican."
"Thank you, John, I'm not looking for one. And I know you don't
drink."
"You want to know, then, where the Mexican keeps his gun?" hazarded
Lefever.
"Not especially. I just want to know----"
"Everything."
"What's behind the bar. That's natural, isn't it?"
Very complete fittings and compartments told of the labor spent in
preparing this inner side for the convenience of the bartender and the
requirements of exacting patrons, but nothing in the way of equipment,
not so much as a pewter spoon, lay anywhere visible.
De Spain, turning, looked all around the room again. "You wouldn't
think," he said slowly, "from looking at the place there was a
road-agent within a thousand miles."
"You wouldn't think, from riding through the Superstition Mountains
there was a lion within a thousand miles. I've hunted them for eleven
years, and I never saw one except when the dogs drove 'em out; but for
eleven years they saw me. If we haven't been seen coming in here by
some of this Calabasas bunch, I miss my guess," declared Lefever
cheerfully.
The batten door behind the bar now began to open slowly and
noiselessly. Lefever peered through it. "Come in, Pedro," he cried
reassuringly, "come in, man. This is no officer, no revenue agent
looking for your license. Meet a friend, Pedro," he continued
encouragingly, as the swarthy publican, low-browed and sullen, emerged
very deliberately from the inner darkness into the obscurity of the
barroom, and bent his one good eye searchingly on de Spain. "This,"
Lefever's left hand lay familiarly on the back of de Spain's
shoulder, "is our new manager, Mr. Henry de Spain. Henry, shake hands
with Mexico."
This invitation to shake hands seemed an empty formality. De Spain
never shook hands with anybody; at least if he did so, he extended,
through habit long inured, his left hand, with an excuse for the
soreness of his right. Pedro did not even bat his remaining eye at the
invitation. The situation, as Lefever facetiously remarked, remained
about where it was before he spoke, and nothing daunted, he asked de
Spain what he would drink. De Spain sidestepped again by asking for a
cigar. Lefever, professing he would not drink alone, called for
cigarettes. While Pedro produced them, from nowhere apparently, as a
conjurer picks cards out of the air, the sound of galloping horses
came through the open door. A moment later three men walked, single
file, into the room. De Spain stood at the left end of the bar, and
Lefever introduced him to Gale Morgan, to David Sassoon, and to
Sassoon's crony, Deaf Sandusky, as the new stage-line manager. The
later arrivals lined up before the bar, Sandusky next to Lefever and
de Spain, so he could hear what was said. Pedro from his den produced
two queer-looking bottles and a supply of glasses.
"De Spain," Gale Morgan began bluntly, "one of our men was put off a
stage of yours last week by Frank Elpaso." He spoke without any
preliminary compliments, and his heavy voice was bellicose.
De Spain, regarding him undisturbed, answered after a little pause:
"Elpaso told me he put a man off his stage last week for fighting."
"No," contradicted Morgan loudly, "not for fighting. Elpaso was
drunk."
"What's the name of the man Elpaso put off, John?" asked de Spain,
looking at Lefever.
Morgan hooked his thumb toward the man standing at his side. "Here's
the man right here, Dave Sassoon."
Sassoon never looked a man in the face when the man looked at him,
except by implication; it was almost impossible, without surprising
him, to catch his eyes with your eyes. He seemed now to regard de
Spain keenly, as the latter, still attending to Morgan's statement,
replied: "Elpaso tells a pretty straight story."
"Elpaso couldn't tell a straight story if he tried," interjected
Sassoon.
"I have the statement of three other passengers; they confirm Elpaso.
According to them, Sassoon--" de Spain looked straight at the accused,
"was drunk and abusive, and kept trying to put some of the other
passengers off. Finally he put his feet in the lap of Pumperwasser,
our tank and windmill man, and Pumperwasser hit him."
Morgan, stepping back from the bar, waved his hand with an air of
finality toward his inoffensive companion: "Here is Sassoon, right
here--he can tell the whole story."
"Those fellows were miners," muttered Sassoon. His utterance was
broken, but he spoke fast. "They'll side with the guards every time
against a cattleman."
"There's only one fair thing to do, de Spain," declared Morgan. He
looked severely at de Spain: "Discharge Elpaso."
De Spain, his hands resting on the bar, drew one foot slowly back.
"Not on the showing I have now," he said. "One of the passengers who
joined in the statement is Jeffries, the railroad superintendent at
Sleepy Cat."
"Expect a railroad superintendent to tell the truth about a Calabasas
man?" demanded Sassoon.
"I should expect him at least to be sober," retorted de Spain.
"Sassoon," interposed Morgan belligerently, "is a man whose word can
always be depended on."
"To convey his meaning," intervened Lefever cryptically. "Of course,
I know," he asserted, earnest to the point of vehemence. "Every one in
Calabasas has the highest respect for Sassoon. That is understood.
And," he added with as much impressiveness as if he were talking
sense, "everybody in Calabasas would be sorry to see Sassoon put off a
stage. But Sassoon is off: that is the situation. We are sorry. If it
occurs again----"
"What do you mean?" thundered Morgan, resenting the interference. "De
Spain is the manager, isn't he? What we want to know is, what you are
going to do about it?" he demanded, addressing de Spain again.
"There is nothing more to be done," returned de Spain composedly.
"I've already told Elpaso if Sassoon starts another fight on a stage
to put him off again."
Morgan's fist came down on the bar. "Look here, de Spain! You come
from Medicine Bend, don't you? Well, you can't bully Music Mountain
men--understand that."
"Any time you have a real grievance, Morgan, I'll be glad to consider
it," said de Spain. "When one of your men is drunk and quarrelsome he
will be put off like any other disturber. That we can't avoid. Public
stages can't be run any other way."
"All right," retorted Morgan. "If you take that tack for your new
management, we'll see how you get along running stages down in this
country."
"We will run them peaceably, just as long as we can," smiled de Spain.
"We will get on with everybody that gives us a chance."
Morgan pointed a finger at him. "I give you a chance, de Spain, right
now. Will you discharge Elpaso?"
"No."
Morgan almost caught his breath at the refusal. But de Spain could be
extremely blunt, and in the parting shots between the two he gave no
ground.
"Jeffries put me here to stop this kind of rowdyism on the stages," he
said to Lefever on their way back to the barn. "This is a good time to
begin. And Sassoon and Gale Morgan are good men to begin with," he
added.
As the horses of the two men emerged from the canyon they saw a
slender horsewoman riding in toward the barn from the Music Mountain
trail. She stopped in front of McAlpin, the barn boss, who stood
outside the office door. McAlpin, the old Medicine Bend barnman, had
been promoted from Sleepy Cat by the new manager. De Spain recognized
the roan pony, but, aside from that, a glance at the figure of the
rider, as she sat with her back to him, was enough to assure him of
Nan Morgan. He spurred ahead fast enough to overhear a request she was
making of McAlpin to mail a letter for her. She also asked McAlpin,
just as de Spain drew up, whether the down stage had passed. McAlpin
told her it had. De Spain, touching his hat, spoke: "I am going right
up to Sleepy Cat. I'll mail your letter if you wish."
She looked at him in some surprise, and then glanced toward Lefever,
who now rode up. De Spain was holding out his hand for the letter. His
eyes met Nan's, and each felt the moment was a sort of challenge. De
Spain, a little self-conscious under her inspection, was aware only of
her rather fearless eyes and the dark hair under her fawn cowboy hat.
"Thank you," she responded evenly. "If the stage is gone I will hold
it to add something." So saying, she tucked the letter inside her
blouse and spoke to her pony, which turned leisurely down the road.
"I'm trying to get acquainted with your country to-day," returned de
Spain, managing with his knee to keep his own horse moving alongside
Nan as she edged away.
She seemed disinclined to answer, but the silence and the awkwardness
of his presence drew at length a dry disclaimer: "This is not my
country."
"I understood," exclaimed de Spain, following his doubtful advantage,
"you lived out this way."
"I live near Music Mountain," returned Nan somewhat ungraciously,
using her own skill at the same time to walk her horse away from her
unwelcome companion.
"I've heard of Music Mountain," continued de Spain, urging his lagging
steed. "I've often wanted to get over there to hunt."
Nan, without speaking, ruthlessly widened the distance between the
two. De Spain unobtrusively spurred his steed to greater activity.
"You must have a great deal of game around you. Do you hunt?" he
asked.
He knew she was famed as a huntress, but he could make no headway
whatever against her studied reserve. He watched her hands, graceful
even in heavy gloves; he noticed the neck-piece of her tan blouse, and
liked the brown throat and the chin set so resolutely against him. He
surmised that she perhaps felt some contempt for him because she had
outshot him, and he continued to ask about game, hoping for a chance
in some far-off time to redeem his marksmanship before her and giving
her every possible chance to invite him to try the hunting around
Music Mountain.
She was deaf to the broadest hints; and when at length she excused
herself and turned her pony from the Sleepy Cat road into the Morgan
Gap trail, de Spain had been defeated in every attempt to arouse the
slightest interest in anything he had said. But, watching with regret,
at the parting, the trim lines of her figure as she dashed away on the
desert trail, seated as if a part of her spirited horse, he felt only
a fast-rising resolution to attempt again to break through her
stubborn reticence and know her better.