DICKY'S LAST BOUT
The fact that the engine had fallen below expectations brought the Sun
Planters' food problem into prominence again. When Elsa had begun
housekeeping for the men she had protested over the meagerness and the
simplicity of the food supplies. But Roger had explained their situation
frankly and Elsa had proceeded to make good German magic over the canned
food of which the camp had been so weary.
"The Lord knows," exclaimed Ernest at the breakfast table one morning,
"how long we'll be tied up in this Hades. If Roger's begun puttering on
the engine we may be here ten years."
"This isn't Hades, Ern!" exclaimed Elsa. "I'm having the time of my
life."
"I notice that Dick's down here a good deal," said Ernest, slyly, "and I
suppose that adds to the hilarity of the nations."
"By the way," Elsa ignored her brother except for a blush, "what are we
going to do about the food problem, Ern? All the cotton-tails and quail
that Gustav shoots, won't keep us much longer."
"Do you suppose Hackett would let us run a bill with him and take a
mortgage on the outfit here as security? Of course, I haven't any right
to give a mortgage but I'll explain the whole situation to him."
Roger's voice had a desperate note in it.
"Well, that is worth the try, eh?" said Gustav. "Me, I might borrow a
little yet, from a friend in the East."
"You'll do nothing of the kind, Gustav," exclaimed Roger. "You're far
from home and you may need all your borrowing power for yourself--not
but what I appreciate your offer, old man!"
"I've got a little--my fare home and about a hundred beside," offered
Elsa.
"Keep it, old girl," Roger's voice was husky. "By Jove, I may be poor in
everything else, but I'm rich in friends. Ern, what do you think of my
suggestion?"
"Well, I hate debt worse than anything in the world. But we're in this
thing up to our necks and I'm willing to try anything that's honest. If
Hackett knows the whole story--"
"He knows it now, I guess, but I'll give him all the details. I may as
well go in to-day and get a yes or no at once."
"I'll go," said Ernest. "I'd like to and you'd better not lose a day."
Roger nodded in a relieved manner.
"Listen! There goes the Lemon!" exclaimed Elsa. "I do hope she goes
to-day."
"Put! Put!" came over the desert. "Put! Put! Put!"
"I guess she's launched and I've got a clear day for work." Roger rose
as he spoke. "Dick's having a struggle to get enough water for that
second five acres of his. He insists that he's going ahead with the next
five, though."
"Elsa, want to go into Archer's with me?" asked Ernest.
"Sorry, Ern, but I'm going to help Charley can pumpkins to-day. She
planted some for luck up by the engine house where the pump leaks, you
remember, and the crop is wonderful."
"Oh, well, if you prefer pumpkins to me and Archer's Springs, I've
nothing to say," groaned Ernest.
"I'll go," offered Gustav. "I haf letters and other things."
Ernest accepted the offer with alacrity. He was beginning to recover
some of his old spirits but he had not been himself since Charley's
refusal. Roger had never known Ernest to take one of his affairs quite
so hard before. He dreaded to be alone and was often moody: a rare state
of mind for easy going Ernest.
The two men made a quick and successful trip to Archer's, for Hackett
agreed to sell them food to the sum of two hundred dollars. He didn't
see how a mortgage could be given but he was willing to take Roger's
personal note for ninety days. This Roger gave with some misgivings but
with a sigh of relief that the day of starvation had been put off once
more. Then he gave his whole mind to his engine problem.
He was planning some changes in his engine that were fundamental and
that were really the outcome of his early trip through the ranges in the
search for window glass. He worked at his redesigning with a single
minded passion that set him apart from the others. All of them except
Felicia found him tense and at times irritable.
As August came in, the beauty of the desert seemed to increase daily.
The heat, whilst it added to one's sense of the desert's cruelty, added
at the same time to the unreality and to the mystery of silence and of
distances that are so large a part of the desert's fascination.
The sand was alive with an uncanny, tiny life. Horned toads flopped
unexpectedly across the trail. Lizards were everywhere, running over and
under the tent floors and along the thatching of the condenser and the
engine house. There were many rattlesnakes too, particularly dangerous
at this time of year because, Dick said, they were shedding their skins
and were blind, striking at any sound. There were Gila monsters now and
again. There were many scorpions and centipedes, with once in a while a
tarantula.
Dick and Charley laid down certain laws of the summer desert. No one was
to go to bed without examining the bedding for tarantulas or centipedes.
No one was to dress without subjecting every article of apparel to the
same scrutiny. No one was to go out at night without a "bug" for fear of
the blind striking of a rattler. Every one must learn to kill a snake
with a snake stick. And every one, even Felicia, must learn to treat
snake bites.
Elsa, clear-headed and matter of fact, was very little annoyed by all
this gliding venomous summer life. But little Felicia's horror of it was
difficult to control. It seemed to Roger that the child's nerves had
been uneven ever since the "cologne affair," as Ernest called it. But he
could not be sure of this, for Charley insisted that the little girl's
fears of all that uncanny fraternity of the sand was exactly what hers
had been four years before.
August was slipping by, quietly enough when Gustav, returning one day
from Archer's Springs, delivered to Roger a letter from Hampton of the
Smithsonian saying that on the thirtieth day of August a representative
of the Smithsonian would reach Archer's Springs on his way to Los
Angeles; that he had but two days to spare but would be glad to give
these days to the Moore experiment.
Roger was in despair. "Two days!" he groaned. "Why, it takes two days to
come up and back. Better stay away."
"Don't be an idiot, Rog," exclaimed Ernest. "You get him here, and he'll
stay for a day or so. How can he get away? The thing that bothers me is
that darned engine of yours."
"It doesn't bother me," replied Roger, with a quick gleam in his gray
eyes and a sudden smile. "I've got a week before he gets here and by
Jove, the old kettle's got to be ready!" He gave a sudden long sigh and
looked off toward the distant line of the river range. "I thought it was
queer of the Smithsonian to treat me as it did. Ern, this puts new life
in me."
If new life means redoubled effort, Roger had found it indeed. He gave
himself as little sleep as possible during the week before the expected
visit. All day and a larger part of the night he was at work in the
engine house, till his eyes were bigger and his face gaunter than ever.
Felicia was his little shadow. Her taste for mechanics made her seem
more like a small boy than ever. And although Roger's tense nerves grew
tenser and his impatience with the others was shown oftener and oftener,
to Felicia he showed only the gentleness for which she loved him.
Charley and Elsa were forming a real friendship. The isolation of the
little desert community was almost complete. Since the death of Von
Minden no one from the outer rim of the desert or of the world had been
near either camp or ranch. Even the Indians who had been camping in the
remote canyon where Felicia had visited them had found good hunting in
some still more remote section and never had appeared in the camp. This
isolation forced the friendship between the two young women to a quick
growth. Charley was happier, Dick said, than he had seen her since her
college days.
Two days before the visitor was due, Roger announced that one day's work
would make him ready for a test, so that, and he did not believe that he
was over-confident, when Gustav arrived with the Smithsonian
investigator, the plant would be in full action. He made this
announcement at breakfast. Ernest and Gustav cheered.
"I never thought you'd make it," said Gustav.
"I _had_ to make it," replied Roger. "I have the conviction that if this
man, whoever he is, sees the plant working, the thing will be done, and
that if he doesn't find the wheels going round, I'm going to miss the
chance of my life."
"If the heat would just let up for a little while," sighed Ernest. "If
he's a northerner, it may put him out of business."
"Pshaw! they'll send an experienced man, never fear!" Roger poured
himself another cup of coffee. "Hello! Here's a caller!"
It was Qui-tha, riding a half-starved pony whose mangy sides were
working in the early morning sun like a pair of bellows.
He dismounted and grinned affably. "How! You give Qui-tha more strong
medicine, maybe!"
"Look here, Qui-tha, I'll give you all the strong medicine you want, if
you'll stay and help me for a week," cried Ernest.
Qui-tha shook his head. "No got time to work. Must go back to Injun camp
take care of sick Injun. Qui-tha heap big medicine man, now."
"All right!" Ernest shrugged his shoulders. "No work, no strong
medicine."
Qui-tha shrugged his shoulders and remounting, he started on up the
trail to the ranch house. Elsa reported later in the day that Dick,
having no peroxide, had promised to get some from Archer's Springs if
Qui-tha would do a day's work for him. Qui-tha, she said, was giving the
matter due consideration.
Late that evening, while Roger and Gustav were working at the little
forge, Ernest came out of the living tent where he had been writing
letters.
"Did you fellows hear a gun shot a little bit ago?" he asked. "You two
are making such an infernal racket, I can't tell what it was."
Roger and Gustav both stopped work and listened. The desert was
breathlessly silent.
"Are you sure?" asked Roger. "Did you think it might have been at the
ranch?"
"I couldn't tell. It may have been nothing at all but you folks here.
But if I hear it again, I'm going up there."
It was fifteen or twenty minutes later that Elsa's voice came from the
trail.
"Ernest! Roger! Gustav!"
The three men started on a run to meet her. A dark figure in the
starlight, she staggered exhausted toward them.
"The Indian--had whiskey--he and Dick both drunk. The Indian shot
Dick--in the leg and ran away."
"Did he hurt you girls?" cried Roger.
"Not a bit. But Dick's terrible. We've got him in his bedroom. But if
his leg didn't prevent him he'd climb out of the window."
As she spoke, she turned back toward the ranch with the men. "You go
ahead. I'm all in and will follow slowly," she said.
"Not with that Indian around in the desert," exclaimed Ernest. "Gustav,
you come along with Elsa and Roger and I'll run for it."
They could hear Dick's roars as they neared the adobe. When they burst
breathlessly into the living room, Charley was standing by the door
holding in place a chair which hung on the knob and against the door
jamb made an effective bolt.
"Is he armed?" asked Roger.
"No," replied Charley. "There's the only gun in the house," pointing to
the one on the table. "And Qui-tha had his with him as he ran out of the
house."
Roger turned to Ernest. "We could just leave him in there alone to wake
up, if there wasn't danger of his bleeding to death. Come on, Ern.
Remember he's as strong as a bear and be ready to jump him with me. Get
some clean rags and water, Charley, and bring them in when we call. And
keep Gustav out. He'll faint."
They slid quickly into Dick's room, closing the door behind them. Dick
lay on the bed, blood oozing through his pants leg below the knee. He
seemed too sick to move, but Roger would take no chances.
"Ern, you hold his hands above his head while I cut off that pants leg."
The precautions were unnecessary. Dick lay muttering and limp while
Roger uncovered a nasty wound that had plowed to the bone down Dick's
skin.
"Qui-tha must have been at close quarters when that happened," said
Ernest. "You'll need help, Roger. Hand me that towel and I'll tie his
hands."
Roger handed Ernest the towel, then went out for the rags and water.
Gustav and Elsa had arrived. He had hardly answered them that Dick's
wound was not very serious when there was a sudden uproar. Dick had gone
amuck again and even the girls had to be called into service to help
with the bandaging while the men held him quiet.
By the time the blood flow was staunched and the rude bandaging
finished, Dick had subsided into a drunken stupor, from which, in spite
of his evident pain, there seemed little danger of his rousing for some
hours. Leaving Gustav to watch, the others withdrew to the living room.
"What have you done with Felicia?" asked Roger.
"She's slept through it all, thank heaven," replied Charley. "I ran into
her room as soon as Qui-tha had clattered away and she was sound asleep.
So I just locked the door. I'll go in now and attend to her."
She picked up a candle and tiptoed into the bedroom. There was a
moment's hush, then Charley rushed back into the living room.
"She's not there! Felicia!" Her voice rising to a scream. "Felicia!
Where are you?"
Elsa ran wildly into the bedroom followed by the others. The little room
was empty. Felicia's nightdress lay in a heap on the floor. The clothing
she had taken off was gone. A quick search of the house, then of the
outbuildings was made. To no avail. Some one gasped:
"Qui-tha!"
But Charley who had recovered her self control, vetoed this idea at
once. "An Indian isn't like that! Roger, she climbed out of the window
to run to you."
"I'll go down there at once," replied Roger. "The rest of you keep on
calling and searching around here."
"Ride old Nell," Charley suggested, as Roger hurried away.
But Felicia was not at the Sun Plant, nor did Roger's stentorian shouts
raise any reply save faint howls from a coyote pack. With a sinking
heart he rode back to the ranch and called in the others whose lights
were flashing about the mountainside.
"If she started for our camp," he said, "I don't see how she could have
wandered away. She knows that trail so well."
"But she has never taken it alone after dark." Elsa's voice was
uncertain. "And she's so little! And it was so dark to-night, I kept
wandering off the trail myself."
"Let's not waste time surmising!" exclaimed Ernest, impatiently.
"But we must use a little system," returned Roger. "Girls, you patrol
the trail up and down between the Sun Plant and here. I've left a
lighted 'bug' in the tent. You both carry 'bugs' and extra candles and
keep calling. The moon will soon be rising, and that will help. Gustav,
you make a big circle round the camp as far out as you can keep the tent
light in sight. Ern, you follow the Archer's Springs trail a mile or so,
then swing inside of Gustav's circle and cover all the arroyas and rock
heaps you can. I'm going to take the mountain trail. Everybody get
something for a tourniquet. At sun up, come back here. If you can find
her, or even get her trail, fire three shots."
Elsa gave a little sob, but Charley was tearless. As they started for
their respective stations, she asked: "How about Dick?"
Roger flushed a deep red. "Dick rots for all I care until we find
Felicia."
No one commented on this and shortly the desert was dotted with slow
moving fingers of light. Roger, as he panted up and down the
mountainside, knew that never would he forget the wistful melancholy of
those thin calls that rose and fell all night, now in Gustav's, or
Ernest's deep notes, now in the high treble tones of Elsa or Charlotte.
"Felicia! Felicia! Felicia!" But Felicia did not answer.
With the dawn, the wind rose, and there began that perpetual shifting
and sifting of the sand which in a few hours more, Roger knew, would
obliterate the little girl's trail, although it was only a summer wind
which would die down by mid-morning.
At sun up, a weary eyed, hoarse and hectic group gathered in the living
room of the adobe.
"Now," said Roger, "you girls get three or four hours' sleep, then one
of you go down to the Plant and one of you stay here. We three men will
take a day's water and grub supply and keep to the general beats we had
last night. I can't believe, unless Qui-tha got her, that she wandered
very far."
"But I saw her after Qui-tha had gone. If a rattler struck her she--"
Charley stopped.
"How long does a person live after a rattler bite?" asked Ernest, with
stiff lips.
"A Mexican who worked for us three years ago lived twelve hours but he
was unconscious most of the time," replied Charley.
"Now, you girls go cook a little breakfast," said Gustav, hastily, "and
ve vill do the chores, eh?"
They ate a hasty meal in the kitchen a little later. No one talked.
Charley patted Elsa's shoulder in a helpless way when Elsa now and again
burst into tears. They had finished their preparation for the renewal of
the search when Dick called from the bedroom. Charley went to him,
closing the door after her. What she said the others did not know but
there was silence in the bedroom for some moments after she came out.
Then there was a confusion of sounds and Dick dragged himself on his
hands and knees into the kitchen. He pulled himself up into the chair by
the table. The others stood silently looking at him.
"O God!" he groaned. "O God in Heaven!"
Still no one spoke.
"Hurry!" he shouted. "What are you waiting for? She may be dead now!
Hurry, you fools!"
"I'm going to stay here, Dick," said Elsa.
"You'll not! To hell with me!" Dick paused and lifted a shaking hand to
his eyes for a moment. "Rog, you go along the foot of the range and
search every canyon. Watch every spot of shade. I've warned her so often
about desert sun."
Roger nodded and started off, Peter following him with a good supply of
water and food on his back. Ernest and Gustav were to use the two
horses.
The sun rose higher and higher, crossed the zenith and traveled toward
the River Range. Roger, with dogged thoroughness, followed the trail
suggested by Dick. He was numb with fear. Remotely he recalled that
somehow he had been expecting this to be a decisive day in his history
but it was only a fleeting memory. Every sense that he possessed was
concentrated on finding Felicia. At noon, he ate and drank something,
then lay down in the shade of a canyon to sleep for an hour or so, with
Peter standing like a little gray bodyguard beside him. At three he was
plodding on his way again, around cactus thicket, up and down washouts,
over rockheaps, talking to Peter when the silence became unendurable, or
his voice refused to rise longer with Felicia's name. He could with
difficulty urge his body on through the burning heat. What then of a
tender little girl? In this summer sun of the desert a man without water
for twenty-four hours would die. What of Felicia?
By sun down he had covered several miles on either side of the ranch. He
was covered with dust and his lips were cracking in spite of his free
use of the canteen. He was tired to the very bones of him. The hot sand
had blistered his feet. The cholla had torn his hands. When the sudden
blackness of night descended, he determined to rest once more until the
moon rose. He did not think that he was more than a mile from the ranch,
but as there was still plenty of food and water, and as he was within
ear-reach of possible gun-shots, there was no point in going home for
the few hours' rest. He removed Peter's pack, gave him some oats and a
mouthful of water, then started a tiny fire of greasewood twigs. It was
very hot but Roger had seen several rattlers during the day and the idea
of lying down in utter darkness did not appeal to him.
Yet, he did not sleep after all. He sat, wide-eyed, feeding the tiny
blaze, trying to develop some new theory on the little girl's sudden
disappearance. He had been pondering this for an hour when there came
the sound of footsteps stumbling through the sand. He jumped trembling
to his feet.
"Felicia! Oh, Felicia!" he cried.
"No! No! It's Charley!" a hoarse voice answered and in a moment Charley
appeared within the tiny circle of firelight. She was disheveled and
pale, and evidently very, very tired, but still outwardly composed.
"Sit down and rest," said Roger. "Here, I've been sitting on Peter's
pack blanket. There's room for us both, I guess."
Charley sank down with a grateful sigh and Roger, recalling his pipe,
took it out, filled it and essayed several puffs, then established
himself beside Charley.
"I couldn't stay indoors," she said. "Dick made us all lie down for a
few hours' sleep, but I couldn't sleep. I thought perhaps she might have
gone up the trail that she took when she went to find the Indians. If
the Indian went down toward your camp, she would try to go in the
opposite direction. And then, I got to wondering if she stole down to
the camp, while we were all occupied with Dick, and finding it all dark,
she got confused and--And then I wonder--"
Roger laid a quiet hand on the interlaced fingers with which Charley was
clasping her knee.
"Easy now, Charley, easy. Have you had your supper?" Charley turned to
look at him. His own eyes filled at the glimpse he got of the misery in
her deep eyes--Felicia's eyes.
"Yes, I think I did," she answered.
"That's fine! Now is any one staying down at the camp in case she
wanders in there?"
"Gustav's there."
"All right! Good old Gustav. It seems to me your idea about the Indian
trail is a good one. How did you come clear up here, when you were
headed into the range."
"My 'bug' went out and I'd lost my matches, so I wandered off the trail,
I guess, till I saw your light."
"My heavens, Charley. But it was a horrible risk you ran! You might
have--"
"Don't scold," said Charley drearily. "What does it matter?"
"I won't scold," replied Roger with a gentle note in his voice that no
one but Felicia had ever heard. "Now, I tell you what we'll do. We'll
just rest here until the moon comes up. Then we'll try the Indian trail.
Let's spread this blanket so you can lie down."
"I don't want to lie down. I just want to sit here by you. She loved you
so."
"All right, Charley. I'll smoke and we'll buck each other up. How's
Dick?"
"I don't really know. He won't let any of us touch him. He must be in
great pain."
"I hope so," said Roger bitterly.
Charley made no reply. The process of bucking each other up did not
proceed with much enthusiasm. The two sat brooding over the tiny blaze.
Now and again Peter returned from a short foraging expedition and
thrusting a soft nose over one of their shoulders waited to have his
forehead rubbed, then started off again.
Roger noted that Charley's pallor had given way to flushed cheeks, and
suddenly he was aware that he too was parched and feverish; that try as
he would to think, clearly, he could do nothing but wonder, impatiently,
when the moon would rise and to fight down the picture that rose
constantly of tiny Felicia wandering in an endless desert. Measuring the
depth of his love for the child by the immensity of his fear, he was
astounded by its greatness.