WATER!
With the long mane of his swift and sure-footed steed streaming in the
wind, his tall form seeming a part of the horse he bestrode, Waltermyer
led the way, followed by the anxious father and his men. There was no
drawing of rein or slacking of speed—no breathing of horses or resting
of men. It was to be with them a race for life, and every minute was
dear and important as weeks of common time. But what course should they
take? This was now the question, and Miles Morse, as he spurred his
horse forward in the almost vain task of equaling the pace of
Waltermyer, felt that all was uncertainty. But not so the border man.
Blind trails were to him pleasant explorations. He was ever on the
watch, his wits sharpened by constant exercise and constant danger. The
wild excitement of a chase like that was far more to his liking than the
winding horn and the baying of hounds ever was to hunter. Mot a single
thought had he of failure. True he might be too late to save the girl
from the clutches of her enemies, but not too late to make them pay the
penalty of their dastard deed.
“Stranger,” he said, suddenly reining in his horse upon the summit of a
knoll that enabled him to overlook the country for miles, “Stranger, did
you say the gal was pooty?”
“More than that—most people call her beautiful.”
“And the Mormon—Thomas—has seen her?”
“Yes; I remember that was his name.”
“To be sure it was. Kirk Waltermyer ain’t a fool, by a long shot. When
he sees a doe wandering alone on the perarer, he knows from what thicket
the cayotes will start in pursuit.”
“But we waste time.”
“Better take breath now than have our horses without wind when the time
comes for them to go. And she was a pooty gal, was she?”
The question was not unnatural to a man like Waltermyer, whose life had
been spent in those trackless prairies and in the rocky cañons of the
mountains. Since his childhood he had scarcely even seen a beautiful
woman, or met with the refinement which no man appreciates more keenly
than the border scout.
No one was more familiar with the squaws and dancing-girls of Toas, or
the pale wrecks of civilization sometimes found in the squatters’ cabins
on the Columbia; but feminine refinement had been to him a vague memory
that soon became his dream. His idea of a beautiful and educated woman
would have matched the inspiration with which more perfect imaginations
regard the angels of heaven. He could not think of a woman so endowed
without a bowing down of his iron will, in imagination, at her feet. He
was bashful and timid as a little child when these fancies crossed his
path. He would have considered Sampson a happy and honored man in being
permitted to lay down his strength at the feet of a beautiful woman. The
border man looked upon women of this class as flowers that a rude hand
like his would crush even in kindness—formed of far different and more
celestial material than that which composed his strong arm and
symmetrical limbs.
It is a truth that your daring Western frontiersman makes a refined
woman his idol—a creature to work for, fight for, and die for, if need
be, without a murmur. A smile from the beloved lips is ample payment for
days and nights of toil, and a word of praise is reward enough for any
danger that life can bring to him. Living, as he does, amid all that is
poetic and sublime in nature, his associations render him peculiarly
alive to the visions that take force and form from the solitude of
thought to which he is often left, weeks and months together.
Thus the man who would not shrink from a hand to front encounter with
the giant bear of the rocky sierras is ready to worship the being who
has realized his fancy—to guard, defend and reverence her as less
powerful natures never could.
“Pooty, is she?” repeated Waltermyer, after a pause. “Waal, she’s no
bird, then, to find a cage among the animiles at Salt Lake. I’d have
give fifty slugs or an hundred head to have been upon the trail sooner.
’Tain’t every horse can keep up with mine, stranger; but if it was, we’d
be rattlin’ onto the rocks of Devil’s Gate before the sun rose again.
No, no; ’tain’t of no use. I don’t know of but one kedripid this side of
the big river that can keep the lope with him for a hull day. A master
horse this, stranger. More’n once he has saved my life, when the red
devils were buzzin’ thick as bees onto my trail and sharpenin’ their
knives to take my har. But Kirk Waltermyer had but to speak, and they
thought a streak of black lightnin’ was rolling over the perarer. I’ve
owned many a horse in my life, but this one is—”
“See; there is dust rising yonder,” interrupted the impatient father.
“Yes, I see!” and he sprung erect upon his steed to get a better view.
“What is it? Are the Indians coming?”
“As sure as you are here. But they ain’t coming this way. Is your guard
strong enough to keep your train?”
“Against an ordinary force. But why do you ask?”
“Because if they hain’t there will not be a single hoof left. The red
devils know you’ll try to find the gal, and so they think they’ll kinder
pitch into the ring and help themselves.”
“What is to be done?”
“DONE!” almost thundered the frontiersman in reply, as he again resumed
his place in the saddle. “Done? You can go back and take care of the
train if you like, but Kirk Waltermyer never leaves the trail of that
gal.”
“Neither shall I.”
“Let the men go back! If your hand is only firm, and your eye true, it
is all I ask; if not, you turn back too, and I’ll take the risk alone.”
“That would not be safe.”
“Safe! I have never seen an hour of safety since I cut loose from the
settlements and took to a roving life. Stranger, I am a rude man, but I
know, though I never had much book learnin’, that I carry my life in my
hand. But there is a Power above that minds the poor, lone wanderer as
well as the dweller in cities.”
“Yes; God never is forgetful of his children.”
“But, stranger, we must not stand to talk here. Yender goes a thievin’,
throat-cuttin’ gang of red-skins. They mean to have your stock; but if
your boys are only steady and fight half as well as La Moine, they will
go back howlin’ without ary a hoof.”
“Let us proceed, then. Cattle, property of any kind, is not to be thrown
into the scale against my daughter.”
“All the herds on the perarer are not worth a single curl of her har. Do
you see that timber yender?”
“Yes; but it appears far distant.”
“Forty miles in a bee-line; but if we don’t get thar before the moon
rises, we might as well turn our horses loose and give the gal up.”
“Let us push on, then. The day is a long one—our horses are not fresh,
and the day is drawing nigh to noon.”
“Thar you’re right. The sun comes straight down without castin’ a
shadder. If your horses had been only perarer-born now, and could travel
all day without water, then—”
“Travel all day without water!”
“_Thar is not one drop between us and that timber!_”
“Few then will reach it; but—hark!”
“The boys are at it! I’d give a sack full of slugs to be thar! Aha! how
the rifles speak! There goes a red devil at every flash if they’d only
Western hands hold of the stocks. By the eternal! but they’ve stampeded
the cattle! No; it’s the prowlin’ reptiles runnin’ away like a pack of
whipped cayotes. Yes, there they go scamperin’ over the perarer. Your
train is safe, stranger, though thar may be more’n one hand less to tend
it; but heaven have mercy on the next that comes along weak-handed.
It’ll take many a hoof and many a scalp to pay for this day’s work; and
if they have seen La Moine, it will be dangerous travelin’ for Kirk
Waltermyer after this.”
“You—why?”
“Only that I will have to father the hull of the business, for they know
the Frenchman and I always hunt in couples. But no matter; the bullet
ain’t run yet that will put a stop to my breath. Now, stranger, since
your yaller-boys and stock is safe, we must put the long miles behind us
if we’d save the gal.”
With the words still ringing upon the air, he dashed forward on his
errand of mercy—perchance of doom! Forward as a protecting Providence,
and it might be as an avenging Fate! Forward, as a lover seeking his
mistress, and yet the trail might end in blood!
The checked and restrained pace of the city steed was but as a snail’s
progress to the whirlwind of their speed. Proudly their crests were
tossed aloft and their heads stretched out as they flung their sinewy
limbs in the long gallop that appeared to laugh at space and scorn time.
Joyous was the music of ringing snaffle and spur, sweet the lyric of
their clattering feet to a horseman’s ear, and wild, almost, as if
“desert-born” their career, as they dashed on, snorting the hot breath
from their scarlet nostrils and flinging the foam from the champing
mouth. It was a race such as pelted thorough-breds may never know of,
and the pampered, stall-fed beast would fail in, before a half-score
miles were accomplished. Deeply the gopher and the prairie-dog had mined
the earth beneath—the wolfs hole was yawning under their feet, and the
long grass, trailed and curled, tangling around them; but determination
had grasped the rein and a heart of fire led the van.
“Halt!”
The quick and ever-watchful eye of Waltermyer saw that the horses of his
followers were unequal to the task, and, checking his own, he allowed
them to move more slowly up a slight rise—a green billow as it were, in
that emerald sea, crested with flowers, and looking more like the
rolling swell of mid-ocean, when the night-tempest has passed and the
morning sun has touched the topmost wave with light and fretted it with
fleecy gold.
“We can never stand this pace—it will be death to the horses, if not the
men,” exclaimed Miles Morse, as he gazed at the heaving flanks and
sobbing nostrils—the sinking fire of the eye and the trembling limbs.
“The horses can not endure it, and unless we proceed more slowly we
shall soon be compelled to go on foot.”
“It’s a pity, stranger, to be mean to dumb beasts. I always go agin it;
but when there is life, human life, and that, too, a woman’s, dependin’
on’t, it ain’t no use to talk about horseflesh. It’s twenty good miles
to the timber yet, and if we don’t manage to reach it, every hoof will
die of thirst.”
“And yet our only chance of life is in riding more slowly.”
“And her’s in bein’ swift and persevering as the black wolf of the
mountains, that can outrun the buffalo and tire the antelope.”
But one thought had possession of Waltermyer. His vivid though unrefined
fancy had exalted Esther Morse into a paragon, and, like Juliet, he
wished but to annihilate space and time, until he rescued her from
danger. In action—fierce, rapid and daring action, such souls alone find
rest; and once enlisted, nothing can swerve them from what becomes, in
their generous imagination, a sacred duty.
“Waal, waal,” he continued, after a pause, “let the beasts jog on for a
while. You can’t expect horses that never saw a perarer before to keep
the speed. But if I had only a know’d a month ago that we should’er had
such a race to run, I’d’er had horses from a corral I know of, that
would not have broke a gallop till they run their noses into them trees.
It’s only fun for my horse, but it’s death to your’n.”
Slowly, for an hour, they proceeded, with the hardy pioneer chafing
every moment at the delay, and his equally hardy steed pressing against
the bit, as if wondering at this unusual restraint.
“Waal, waal,” he said, addressing his horse from time to time, as if he
had been his sole companion, “Waal, waal, Blazin’ Star, (he named him
so, from the single white mark he had about him—the snowy spot in his
forehead,) I didn’t think we’d be joggin’ across the perarer to-day as
if we was goin’ to a funeral. Any horse that is not good for an all
day’s run isn’t of any account here, and the sooner the buzzards
foreclose the mortgage they have on them, the better.”
Insensibly, unknown to himself, he had slackened the rein, and his
impatient horse had stretched his lithe limbs again into a gallop. With
the careless fling that tireless power ever gives, and the certainty of
foot that only comes with constant practice, he sped along, making light
of the task, and leaving the rest far behind. Keen-eyed, and with heart
of fire and limbs that mocked at exertion, he would have sped on, on,
until the shafts of death struck him in his reckless career, had not the
iron curb again forced his will to bend to the strong hand.
And a sad scene for one so tender of heart awaited his eyes. The truly
brave are ever merciful, and as the gallant soldier is both just and
kind to his conquered enemy, so is the master to the dumb beast that
becomes at once friend and companion on the lengthy trail. The pain of
his steed becomes his own, and, tenderly and kindly as a mother, he
watches, and strains every nerve to alleviate his sufferings.
The horses came struggling through the rank herbage up the long swell,
reeling, staggering, and to hold their own in the desperate toil. On
they came, flecked with foam, their great eyes dim with exhaustion,
their flanks heaving, their inflamed nostrils widely distended as the
hot, dry breath panted through them.
Poor wretches, it was a pain to look upon them, so patient and so ready
to drop down dead in that horrible journey. Their poor lips were drawn
back, for the relaxed muscles no longer held them firmly in place, and
the dry tongue fell helplessly through the yellow teeth, now visible to
the roots. As the poor, dumb creatures turned their glaring eyes on
their masters, but one wild pitying cry went up from the human lips:
“Water! water!”
That speechless agony of insupportable thirst—the horrible tragedy of
mindless creatures perishing in dumb submission, made those stern men
forget their own anguish. That picture of men and beasts grouped
together in one horrible suffering was awful to behold.
“Waltermyer,” whispered the despairing father, in a voice that came
hoarse and faint from the parched lips and seared throat, “can we not
find water?”
“Have you no flask, man?”
“It is emptied long ago.”
“Take mine, then.”
“Good! But the horses? Can we not dig a well here?”
“Dig! Why, man, you would go to China before you found enough to wet the
tongue of a bird. Do these sage bushes look as if they had ever seen
dew?”
“Then the horses must die.”
“Not yet. Strip them of your heavy saddles—throw the blankets away. The
cool air will revive them, and so we gain miles. Then, if worst comes to
worst, they must be left, and my word for it, they will find water
themselves long before morning. A beast’s instincts never fail in that
matter. I’ve seen it tried over and again. Off with your saddles, boys,
and drive the horses before you.”
He was obeyed, and again the company started, and straggled on. But the
toil soon told on the men. They mounted once more, and forced the beasts
forward, staggering, stumbling, falling.
“Water!”
The cry came now most piercing from parched human lips, for the sun,
blazing above their heads, poured down sheeted fire upon them, and the
now almost herbless earth was like an oven beneath their feet. Dense as
the smoke from the smouldering ruins of a burning city, the dust rose,
but to settle again, choking and blinding them. The breeze of morning
was dead, and millions of myriads of insects swept a dense cloud along
their path. It was agony to struggle on—death to remain!
“Water!”
With cracking lips and bloodshot eyes, they staggered on. The horses
were fast becoming mad with thirst, and covered with blood from the
pitiless stings of hungry insects—with the fiery sky and baked earth
beneath, they still stumbled forward, hopeless, fainting, gasping for
life.
“Water!”
In the yet distant timber, the green leaves rustled and sung a dewy
psalm—the liquid crystals dropped into mossy pools—flashed over the
white pebbles—leaped from the lofty rock—danced in foamy eddies, and
flung high the wreaths of misty spray. Cool and sparkling they slept in
the deep pools, sung along the rapids, and showered the jutting rocks,
until they looked like Tritons shaking their wet locks, and rising from
an ocean’s bed. From the far-off springs, the icegrottoes and eternal
snows of their mountain home, they had come, laughing, leaping, dashing,
to charm the mind with fairy pictures, and gratify the thirsty soul,
until it reeled with the overflowing of perfect satiety. Ah! what a
dream for fevered lips—bodies aflame with heat, and hearts sinking with
the long-endured sufferings of ungratified thirst. What a vivid mockery
it was.
“Water! water!” whispered every tongue, and the hollow-eyed and gasping
horses told of still deeper want.
“Water, for God’s sake, Waltermyer, guide us to water,” was now the
continued cry.
“Be men! A short hour will bring us to it. See yender, where the ground
looks dead, and dry, and parched. That is the long grass of a savanna;
beyond it we can find water by digging. The _arroyas_ may not be dried
up, but if they are, thar is, or was an old well thar that never failed
me yet.”
“Come on, then!”
Oh! with what fearful hoarseness the sound came from the seared
throats—a harsh, file-like, rasping sound, as if the breath was forced
between the thickly-set saw-teeth, or could find an outlet only between
ragged stones.
“That I will, boys. I’d even go before—for, see, my horse hasn’t turned
a hair yet—and bring you water, if I dared. Put a bullet in your mouths,
and we’ll drink toasts yet, around the Challybate spring.”
A horse dropped now and then, but they could not pause for that. Mind
was superior in the struggle to matter. A man fell but was lifted up,
encouraged, and again toiled on. The savanna was reached—the tall, dry,
flag-like grass rose above them on every side, and walled them in alike
from air and sun, but, alas! so also it confined the dust, and robbed
them of the scanty breathing they had before enjoyed. But on! on! wildly
they crept.
“A mile more and we are safe. Courage, boys!” shouted Waltermyer,
standing up, as was his wont when he wished to reconnoiter, upon the
back of his steed.
The rods appeared to lengthen out into furlongs, and the furlongs into
miles; but, cheering each other, they still continued, almost groping
their way. Hark! The heads of the remaining horses were lifted at the
strange sound—their ears were erected—their eyes flashed wildly, and
with a loud neigh they dashed over those who stood in their path, and,
as if fiend-driven, rushed to the stream, and almost buried themselves
in the tide.
An hour later, swarthy forms were stretched upon the grassy banks, and
gratified senses were satisfied with the dewy mists rising around, and
the cool, mountain-fed waters that sparkled at their feet.
Waltermyer had redeemed his promise, and the tide flowed by as
uncared-for as if it had not been to them Heaven’s gift itself only a
few hours before.