THE LONELY HUNTER
As soon as Ernest and she were alone in the kitchen, Charley whispered:
"How about Mrs. von Minden?"
"Oh, they had a fine row. She wants his strong box. She said at first
that she didn't know what she wanted but later confessed that it was her
marriage certificate plus something the Yogis were to put her wise to."
"Poor old soul!" exclaimed Charley softly. "What tragedy do you suppose
is back of all this?"
"I don't know. But none of us urged the poor old girl to come up here
with us. He says he's going to spend the night with you, but if Dick
isn't here--"
"That's all right," said Charley. "He stays here often when Dick is
gone. He and I are great friends. I shall say nothing at all about his
wife, unless he does."
"That's the best cue, I think," agreed Ernest; "I'm so darned sorry
about the alfalfa, Charley."
"Pioneer luck," replied the girl shaking her dark head. "I feel rather
heartsick about it myself. If only Dick wouldn't go to pieces so! That's
what worries me, because we may have many failures before the alfalfa
catches and he is going to have such a hard time."
"I can't see why you chose such a difficult part of the world to farm
in," mused Ernest.
"That's where the sport comes in," returned Charley with a smile.
Whatever discomfort Dick's surly and erratic moods may have cost her
Charley gave no sign that evening of having any thought save the comfort
and entertainment of her guests. Before Felicia had been sent to bed and
after the men, all smoking, had listened to Von Minden's dissertation on
sand storms, Charley suggested that Peter be invited in and put through
his paces.
To the surprise and delight of the others, when Crazy Dutch went to the
door and whistled, there was the sound of little hoof-beats on the
porch, then Peter's gray head appeared enquiringly in the doorway.
"Wipe your feet and come in, Peter," said Crazy Dutch, returning to his
seat by the fire.
The little donkey rubbed one hoof after the other on the straw mat
before the sill, then advanced into the room. Felicia, who was in
Roger's lap, trembled with excitement and pleasure.
"Now, Peter dear, here is your pipe," pulling a corncob from his pocket;
"sit down and smoke it like a gentleman."
Peter took his pipe somewhat gingerly between his teeth and then with
considerable difficulty backed his haunches down onto the box that Von
Minden kicked over to him. There he sat gravely holding the empty pipe,
his long ears moving slowly back and forth.
"All right, sweetheart, there's a bit of sugar for you. Shake hands with
the ladies and gentlemen."
Like a great gray dog, Peter went from one to another, lifting his tiny
hoof to be shaken. Felicia was afraid at first but ended by shaking the
little unsteadily proffered hoof and kissing the little fellow's dusty
forehead with a squeal of delight.
"Now you give us each a good night kiss, liebchen," ordered Von Minden,
and as he indicated each person in turn, Peter followed and touched each
one on the back of the neck, with his velvet nose.
"Now say good night," was the last order and Peter lifted his voice in a
bray that shook the very rafters, after which he trotted out the door.
Certainly Peter and his master had never played to a more enthusiastic
audience. Felicia wanted to go out and ride him then and there and
Charley had to use considerable persuasion to get the excited little
girl off to bed. But after this was accomplished Roger asked:
"Where did you get Peter? Will you sell him?"
Crazy Dutch darted an ugly look at Roger.
Charley cut in quickly. "Tell us where you found him, Uncle Otto. Mr.
Moore was merely showing how much he admired Peter."
"I thought he'd be so fine for Felicia," exclaimed Roger.
Von Minden grunted. Then he lighted his pipe. "I have not always been as
you see me now," he said. "I was a geologist of reputation and when my
health demanded a hot climate, it was natural I should come here to look
for mines for a great German company. I am lucky and I have brains and I
have the greatest training in the world, German training, so I find
several mines and then jealousies, jealousies--jealousies--" he fell to
mumbling to himself.
Charley prompted him. "So you decided to strike out for yourself, about
five years ago."
"Yes, I do so. By then, you see, I had gotten to understand the desert
loneliness. I loved it and I sold myself to the desert, body and soul.
All I asked was to wander about on her magnificent barren bosom. It
seemed to me I was entirely happy. But one day I found a little young
burro stuck in a crevice in a blind canyon. Evidently he had been
abandoned by an Indian. Me, I climb down in the crevice and I tie his
heels so he can't kick and with my geologist's pick and hammer I work so
carefully all day till I get him out. Why such toil? Because I find when
I look into Peter's deep eyes that I am lonely--lonely beyond the power
of thought or word to describe. And Peter, from that day to this, has
never left me, day or night."
"You are in excellent health again, Mr. von Minden," said Ernest. "Don't
you plan ever to return to the Vaterland?"
"Yes! Yes!" cried Crazy Dutch, "but only when I can return with an
empire in my hand for my Kaiser."
"Hoch!" said Gustav softly, "Hoch!"
"Hoch!" Roger and Ernest took up the exclamation with a laugh and a wave
of their pipes, and Charley joined them, smiling. Von Minden looked
deeply pleased.
"Yes! Yes!" he cried. "You all are good children, properly educated,
ready to understand Germany as the citizens of no other country. You all
speak German? Yes! And you all know German literature and music to be
the best. Yes, ah, these great universities and high schools, they are
doing their work wonderfully."
"If I fall down all together in getting my plant funded in this country,
I'm going to Germany with it," said Roger abruptly.
"No, you aren't!" cried Charley, quickly; "I love Germany too, but
America comes first."
Ernest rose with a sigh. "That may be, but with me, bed comes first."
"You will not be cross the next time we meet, eh?" asked Crazy Dutch as
the men made their adieux.
"I'll try not to be!" replied Roger, not too enthusiastically.
When they had crawled into their cots, an hour later, Roger said: "Ern,
do you realize that we haven't a drop of crude oil for the absorber
flow?"
"Sure, I do," replied Ernest. "I've been wondering for days what we
would do about it, but until I had a suggestion, I didn't want to bring
the matter up."
"How much money do you think the Dean can get for the laboratory
equipment?" asked Roger.
"Well, I hope at least two hundred dollars. But you know how those
things go."
"We'll have to save every cent of that for grub," mused Roger. "Dick
told me that over on Snake Peak there is a mine that closed down four
years ago and that their engine was an oil burner. He says there hasn't
been a watchman there for a year. There's a chance that they have left
some oil."
"How'll you pay for it?" asked Ernest.
"Pay for it!" grunted Roger. "Wait till I find it, will you? You and
Gustav clean up after the storm to-morrow and go on with the absorber.
I'll take a tramp up to Snake Peak."
He was on his way before sun-up, the next morning, a canteen of water
over his shoulder and a lunch in his pocket. He moved as rapidly as the
heavy walking permitted, driven by a sense of impatience to which he
gave no name. But subconsciously he realized that forever behind that
beauty of the desert to which, like Von Minden, he felt he might gladly
sell himself, loomed the menace of the desert's brutality which he was
not equipped to fight and which he could overcome only by the
extraordinary precision and swiftness of his work.
The sun was not half an hour high when Roger reached the top of the
mountain behind the ranch. Here he gazed eastward across the low ranges
to a peak which dominated all the crests around it, a jagged, black and
brown monster, its top crimson now in the morning glow.
Roger stood breathing deeply, hat in hand, the sun turning his bronze
hair red, his thin strong body erect against the morning sky. He could
see no trail, so he determined to reach Snake Peak by a direct cross
line. The peak would be lost to view when he reached the valley below so
he sighted a lonely cedar on the crest of the opposite range and began
to climb downward. It was stiff going. The prickly pear cactus and the
ollas grew thick and the ground was covered with broken rock that made
short work of his already well-worn shoes.
When Roger reached the lonely cedar the sun was two hours high. He had
thought to make it in twenty minutes. He dropped, trembling with
weariness in the shadow of a little tree, drank deeply of the canteen
and gave himself ten minutes of rest, lying flat on his back, his eyes
on the magnificent expanse of the heavens.
The ten minutes up, he crossed the narrow ridge and after a moment found
a landmark on the opposite crest, a single black rock against a lavender
outcropping. Again he plunged into the narrow valley below him falling,
sliding and swearing, then scrambling and clambering with knee and elbow
and broken nail, until after another hour's interval, he cast himself
down on the lavender outcropping.
Snake Peak was now just across the canyon and he could see clearly the
gray white of the tailing dump that marked the mine. It was well after
eleven when in a fury of impatience he reached his final goal.
The loneliness of the untouched wilderness is not so great as that of
the deserted habitation. Roger had not felt the desert's solitude until
he dropped on a bench outside the cook house and began to examine the
lost endeavor about him. There were bunk houses and office buildings,
shaft and engine houses, aerial tramways and car tracks, all the many
and costly appurtenances of desert mining. Sand lay thick over
everything. The silence was complete save for the flopping of the torn
canvas that had been fastened over a hoist.
A sense of profound depression settled upon Roger. He dropped his head
in his hands with a groan. A dream, vastly better financed than his own,
had come to naught in the face of the distances and the difficulties of
the desert. Was there any greater hell, he wondered than to be hounded
by a creative desire for which there was no outlet; to have stored
within one's brain gifts indispensable to humanity's best development,
of which humanity would take heed only after the creator had been
crucified by desperate handicaps and indifference.
As Roger brooded, his eyes fell on the engine house and a carefully
locked shed beside it. His face brightened. He got stiffly to his feet
and plodded up to the window of the engine house, raised it and
clambered within. A great engine shrouded with greasy canvas lay in the
dusky room. It was a gas-producer type, in excellent condition. Roger
went over it as tenderly and eagerly as a horseman goes over a
thoroughbred racer. Then he went through the open door into the shed
adjoining. It was full of oil drums, some of them empty but with a
sufficient number filled to more than satisfy Roger's needs.
He suddenly began to whistle cheerfully, went over the engine again and
was still whistling when he climbed out of the window and sat down on
the bench to eat his lunch. When he had finished eating he lighted his
pipe and sat smoking at ease. Life was not so bad, by Jove! One could
make the desert his if one had resourcefulness and courage. As soon as
Dick's horses were rested after their return from Archer's Springs, they
must start hauling oil. Of course, though, that beastly re-seeding would
have to be done first. Roger's shoulders twitched impatiently and he
started abruptly homeward.
The sun had set, when weary beyond words, he reached the Sun Plant.
"Well! Did you run across the Von Mindens?" was Ernest's greeting.
"No! What's happened?"
"We don't know. The old lady was so long coming out of her tent that
toward noon I investigated, to find that she was no longer with us. I
went up to Prebles' and Charley reported that two of the madam's burros
were missing this morning as well as the pack ropes. We think that she
hit out in the night and is trailing the old boy up in the ranges. He
started off early, serene in the thought that she was down here. Charley
didn't mention the burros to him."
"Well, thank heaven for small favors!" exclaimed Roger. "She certainly
got on my nerves."
"Did you find oil?" asked Gustav.
"Yes, I unearthed a fine cache of it. I wish you folks could see the
outfit up there on Snake Peak," and he told them what he had found.
"But you aren't going to annex that oil until you hear from the owners?"
exclaimed Ernest.
"You write to the owners, when we get it here, enclosing a check for the
oil at market rates. I may have trouble, but I doubt it."
They were sitting as usual before their tent smoking their good night
pipes.
"You will get into trouble, Rog," warned Ernest. "Impatience is all
right and good driving power, but what's the use of laying yourself open
to difficulties?"
"Don't be an old maid, Ern, with your piffling German conscientiousness.
I haven't the slightest notion of stealing. I'll pay for every drop of
the oil--"
"How vas the road?" asked Gustav.
"No road at all," replied Roger. "I just plunged through across
country."
"Then, the horses, where--"
"Lord, that's right!" interrupted Roger. "I noticed that there was a
good enough road leading out of the mine to the south--toward Archer's
Springs. But it's clear on the other side of the range and parallel to
this trail, of course. No good to us at all. Don't tell me we've got to
build a road to get that oil out. My lord, what a country!"
"Vell," said Gustav, "if it is too hard to get it out, then you don't
steal it, then you don't break the law, then you don't get arrested, so
that is good."
"Don't you think I won't get it out, if I have to pack it out in a
canteen," said Roger. "High treason, arson, murder are nothing to stand
between me and that cache of oil."
"You'd better swipe two teams of horses, Rog, on one of your predatory
expeditions," exclaimed Ernest. "Dick may need his own horses
occasionally this spring."
Roger rose and knocked the ashes out of his pipe. "I'd like to swipe
that gas producer engine up there," he replied and went to bed.