MADONNA DOLOROSA
Blake was cooking supper when, shortly before sunset, Gowan drove up
to the waterhole, with a pony in lead behind the heavy wagon. Leaving
the wagon with the rope and other articles of his load on the far side
of the creek bed, he watered and picketed the horses, and came across
to the tent with his rifle and a roll of blankets.
"Howdy, Mr. Blake. Got here in time for supper, I see," he remarked as
he unburdened himself. "Met Mr. Knowles and the ladies down near the
ranch. They told me about the shooting." He faced about to stare at
Ashton's bandaged head. "They told me you came mighty near getting
yours. You shore are a lucky tenderfoot."
Ashton shrugged superciliously. "The worst of it is the additional
hole in my hat. I see you have a new one. Is that the latest style on
the range?"
"Stetson, brand A-1.," replied the puncher. "How does it strike you,
Mr. Blake?--and my new shirt? Having a dude puncher on our range kind
of stirred up my emulosity. They don't have real cowboy attire like
his at an ordinary shorthorn cow town like Stockchute--but I did the
best I could."
Blake made no response to this heavy badinage. He set the supper on
the chuck-box, and laconically said: "Come and get it."
"Might have known you've been on round-up," remarked Gowan, with an
insistent sociability oddly at variance with his usual taciturn
reserve. "According to Miss Chuckie, you're some rider, and according
to Mr. Knowles, you can shoot. I wouldn't mind hearing from you direct
about that shooting this morning."
Blake recounted the affair still more briefly than he had told it to
Knowles.
"That shore was a mighty close shave," commented the puncher. "But you
haven't said what the fellow looked like."
"He wore ordinary range clothes," replied Blake. "I couldn't see him
behind the rocks, and caught only a glimpse of him as he went around
the ridge. His horse was much the same build and color as Rocket."
The puncher stared at Ashton with his cold unblinking eyes. "You shore
picked out a Jim Dandy guide, Mr. Tenderfoot. According to this, it
looks mighty like he's gone and turned hawss thief. Mr. Knowles says
your Rocket hawss has vamoosed. If he's moving to Utah under your
ex-guide, it'll take some lively posse to head him. What d'you say,
Mr. Blake?"
"I think the man is apt soon to come to the end of his rope--after
dropping through a trap door," said the engineer.
Gowan looked at him between narrowed eyelids, and paused with upraised
coffee cup to reply: "A man that has shown the nerve this one has
won't let anyone get close enough to rope him."
"It will be either that or a bullet, before long," predicted Blake.
"The badman is getting to be rather out of date."
"Maybe a bullet," admitted Gowan. "Never any rope, though, for his
kind.--Guess I'll turn in. It's something of a drive over to
Stockchute and back with the wagon, and I got up early. You and Ashton
might go on watch until midnight, and turn me out for the rest of the
night."
"Very well," agreed Blake.
The puncher stretched out on his blankets under a tree, a few yards
from the tent. Ashton took the dishes down to sand-scour them at the
pool, while Blake saw that everything damageable was disposed safe
from the knife-like fangs of the coyotes.
"How about keeping watch?" asked Ashton, when he returned with the
cleansed dishes. "Shall I take first or second?"
"Neither," answered Blake. "You will need all the sleep and rest you
can get. Tomorrow may be a hard day. Turn in at once."
"If you insist," acquiesced Ashton. "I still am rather weak and
dizzy." He went to the tent and disappeared.
Blake took the lantern and strolled across to the wagon, to look at
the numerous articles brought by Gowan. He set the lantern over in the
wagon bed on top of what seemed to be a heap of empty oat sacks, while
he overhauled the load. It included three coils of rope of a hundred
feet each, a keg of railroad spikes, two dozen picket-pins, two heavy
hammers, a pick and shovel, and a crowbar.
The last three articles had not been ordered by Blake. The puncher had
brought them along, apparently with a hazy idea that the descent of
the canyon would be something on the order of mining. There were also
in the wagon two five-gallon kerosene cans to use in carrying water up
the mountain, a sack of oats, Gowan's saddle, and two packsaddles.
In shifting one of the packsaddles to get at the hammers, Blake
knocked it against the sack on which the lantern had been set. The
lantern suddenly fell over on its side. Blake reached in to pick it
up, and perceived that the sack was rising in a mound. He caught up
one of the hammers, and held it poised for a stroke. From the sack
came a muffled rattle. The hammer descended in a smashing blow.
The sack rose and fell as if something under it was squirming about
convulsively. But to Blake's surprise it did not fall aside and
disclose that which was making the violent movement. The squirming
lessened. He grasped an outer corner of the sack and jerked it upward.
It failed to flip into the air. The lower part sagged heavily. The
squirmer was inside and--the mouth of the sack was tied fast.
Blake looked at it thoughtfully. After some moments, he placed the
sack where it had lain at first, and upset the keg of spikes on top of
it. He then carefully examined Gowan's saddle; but it told him
nothing. He shook his head doubtfully, and returned to camp.
Going quietly around to Gowan, he set down the lantern close before
the puncher's face and stopped to light a cigar. Gowan stirred
restlessly and rolled half over, but did not open his eyes. Blake
smoked his cigar, extinguished the lantern, and quietly stretched out
on the edge of the sleeper's blankets. In a few moments he, too, was
asleep.
About two o'clock Gowan stirred and rolled over, pulling at his
blankets. Instantly Blake was wide awake. The puncher mumbled, drew
the blankets closer about him, and lay quiet. Blake went into the tent
and dozed on his own blankets until roused by the chill of dawn. He
went down for a plunge in the pool, and was dressed and back at the
fireplace, cooking breakfast, when Gowan started up out of his heavy
slumber.
"Yes, it's getting along about that time," Blake called to him
cheerfully. "You might turn out Ashton. He has made as good a night of
it as you have."
Gowan had been staring at the dawn, his lean jaw slack. As Blake
spoke, he snapped his mouth shut and came over to confront the
engineer. "You agreed to call me at midnight," he said.
"My apology!" politely replied Blake. "I know how you must feel about
it. But I hope you will excuse me. I saw that you, like Ashton, needed
a full night's sleep, and so did not disturb you."
The puncher looked away and muttered: "I'm responsible for you to Mr.
Knowles. He sent me here to guard you."
"That is true. Of course you will say it's owing to no fault of mine
that we have come through the night safely. Well, we have a big day's
work before us. May I ask you to call Ashton? Breakfast is ready."
At this the puncher sullenly went to rouse the sleeper. Ashton came
out rubbing his eyes; but after a dip in the pool, he declared himself
restored by his long sleep and ready for a day's work. During the
night his bandage had come loose. He would have tossed it away, but
Blake insisted upon re-dressing the wound. He did so with as much
skill and almost as much gentleness as had his wife.
When Blake and Ashton left the camp, the puncher was leading the
horses across to load their first packs. The two levelmen walked
briskly up the valley, carrying only enough food and water to last
themselves until evening, when Gowan was to have the camp moved to the
top of High Mesa.
Beginning from his bench-mark at the foot of the mountain, Blake
carried the level line slantingly up the ridge side. The work was slow
and tedious, since the telescope of the level could never be on a
horizontal line either higher or lower respectively than the top and
bottom of the thirteen-foot rod. This necessitated setting-up the
instrument every few feet during the steepest part of the ascent.
They saw nothing of Gowan, who had chosen a more roundabout but easier
trail. At midmorning, however, they were overtaken by Genevieve and
Isobel and Thomas Herbert Vincent Leslie Blake. Knowles had started
for Stockchute to seek the aid of the sheriff and his Indian
prisoners. The ladies divided the ascent into several stages, riding
ahead of the surveyors and resting in the shade of a rock or pine
until the men had passed them.
Near noon, when the levels had been carried up close to the top of
High Mesa, Gowan rode down to the party to inquire where the new camp
was to be pitched.
"I've brought up a lot this trip," he stated. "I can fetch the rest by
sundown, if I don't have to meander all over the mesa with these first
packs."
"Where did you leave the packhorses?" asked Blake.
"Up along the canyon where Ashton shot his yearling deer," answered the
puncher. "It's about half way between that gulch where you say you're
going down and the bend across from the head of Dry Fork Gulch."
"We'll camp there," decided Blake. "It is on the shortest trail to
that gulch, and you'll not have time to get your second load farther
before dark."
The puncher started back. But Isobel, who had come riding up with
Genevieve, called out to stop him: "Wait, Kid. It is almost noon. You
must take lunch with us."
"Can't leave those hawsses standing with the packs, Miss Chuckie, if
they're to make another trip today," he replied.
"Suppose you unload them and come back along the edge of the canyon?"
suggested Blake. "We shall knock off soon and all go over to give my
wife her first look at the canyon. We can eat lunch there together."
To this Gowan nodded a willing assent, and he jogged away, with a half
smile on his thin lips. But that which pleased him had precisely the
opposite effect on Ashton. He did not fancy sharing the companionship
and attention of Miss Knowles with the puncher. As this interference
with his happiness was due to Blake, he showed a petulant resentment
towards the engineer that won him the girl's sympathetic concern. She
attributed his fretfulness to his wound. Blake made the same mistake.
"You've done quite enough for the morning, Ashton, with that head of
yours," he said. "We're over the worst now, and can easily run on up
to the camp this afternoon. We shall knock off for a siesta."
"Needn't try to make out I'm a baby!" snapped Ashton.
"Leave your rod here," went on Blake, disregarding the other's
irascibility. "I'll take the level. It may enable us to see the bottom
of the canyon."
He started on up the slope beside his wife's pony. Ashton was somewhat
mollified when he saw Isobel linger for him to walk beside her horse.
She was carrying the baby, who, regardless of scenic attractions, had
fallen asleep during the long climb from the lower mesa. The sight of
the child clasped to her bosom awakened all that was highest in his
nature. Concern over his wound had sobered her usual gay vivacity to a
look of motherly tenderness.
"Do you know," he murmured during a pause in their conversation, "you
make me think of pictures of the Madonna!"
"Lafe!" she protested, blushing and as quickly paling. "You should not
say such a thing. It is lovely--a beautiful thing to tell me; but--but
I do not deserve it!"
"Madonna!--my Madonna!" he murmured in ardent adoration.
"Oh, please! when I've asked you not to!" she implored. "It is not
right! I--I am not!--" Tears glistened in her soft eyes. She bent over
to suppress a sob that might have awakened the sleeping infant.
Ashton gazed up at her, wonder and contrition mingling with his
deepening adoration. "Forgive me, Miss Chuckie! But I meant it--I feel
it! I never before felt this way towards any girl!... I know I have no
right to say anything now. I am a pennyless adventurer, a disgraced,
disinherited son, a mere cowpuncher apprentice; but if, by next
spring, I shall have--"
"Oh, see. They're getting such a long way ahead of us!" exclaimed the
girl, urging her pony to a faster gait.
The animal started forward with a suddenness that left Ashton behind.
He made no effort to regain his position beside the girl's stirrup.
Instead, he lagged farther and farther in the rear, his face crimson
with mortification and anger. As his chagrin deepened, his flush
became almost feverish and there was a suggestion of wildness in his
flashing eyes. It was as though his passion was intensifying some
injury to his brain caused by the concussion of the bullet on his
skull.