In a little village which he had glimpsed from the top of a hill Bud
went into the cluttered little general store and bought a few blocks of
slim, evil smelling matches and a couple of pounds of sliced bacon, a
loaf of stale bread, and two small cans of baked beans. He stuffed
them all into the pocket of his overcoat, and went out and hunted up a
long-distance telephone sign. It had not taken him more than an hour to
walk to the town, for he had only to follow a country road that branched
off that way for a couple of miles down a valley. There was a post
office and the general store and a couple of saloons and a blacksmith
shop that was thinking of turning into a garage but had gone no further
than to hang out a sign that gasoline was for sale there. It was all
very sordid and very lifeless and altogether discouraging in the drizzle
of late afternoon. Bud did not see half a dozen human beings on his way
to the telephone office, which he found was in the post office.
He called up San Francisco, and got the chief of police's office on the
wire, and told them where they would find the men who had robbed that
jewelry store of all its diamonds and some other unset jewels. Also he
mentioned the car that was stolen, and that was now stalled and waiting
for some kind soul to come and give it a tow.
He speedily had all the attention of the chief, and having thought
out in advance his answers to certain pertinent questions, he did not
stutter when they were asked. Yes, he had been hired to drive the ear
south, and he had overheard enough to make him suspicious on the way. He
knew that they had stolen the car. He was not absolutely sure that
they were the diamond thieves but it would be easy enough to find out,
because officers sent after them would naturally be mistaken for first
aid from some garage, and the cops could nab the men and look into that
grip they were so careful not to let out of their sight.
“Are you sure they won't get the car repaired and go on?” It was
perfectly natural that the chief should fear that very thing.
“No chance!” Bud chuckled into the 'phone. “Not a chance in the world,
chief. They'll be right there where I left 'em, unless some car comes
along and gives 'em a tow. And if that happens you'll be able to trace
'em.” He started to hang up, and added another bit of advice. “Say,
chief, you better tell whoever gets the car, to empty the gas tank and
clean out the carburetor and vacuum feed--and she'll go, all right!
Adios.”
He hung up and paid the charge hurriedly, and went out and down a
crooked little lane that led between bushes to a creek and heavy timber.
It did not seem to him advisable to linger; the San Francisco chief of
police might set some officer in that village on his trail, just as a
matter of precaution. Bud told himself that he would do it were he in
the chief's place. When he reached the woods along the creek he ran,
keeping as much as possible on thick leaf mold that left the least
impression. He headed to the east, as nearly as he could judge, and when
he came to a rocky canyon he struck into it.
He presently found himself in a network of small gorges that twisted
away into the hills without any system whatever, as far as he could see.
He took one that seemed to lead straightest toward where the sun would
rise next morning, and climbed laboriously deeper and deeper into the
hills. After awhile he had to descend from the ridge where he found
himself standing bleakly revealed against a lowering, slaty sky that
dripped rain incessantly. As far as he could see were hills and more
hills, bald and barren except in certain canyons whose deeper shadows
told of timber. Away off to the southwest a bright light showed
briefly--the headlight of a Santa Fe train, he guessed it must be. To
the east, which he faced, the land was broken with bare hills that fell
just short of being mountains. He went down the first canyon that opened
in that direction, ploughing doggedly ahead into the unknown.
That night Bud camped in the lee of a bank that was fairly well screened
with rocks and bushes, and dined off broiled bacon and bread and a can
of beans with tomato sauce, and called it a meal. At first he was not
much inclined to take the risk of having a fire big enough to keep him
warm. Later in the night he was perfectly willing to take the risk, but
could not find enough dry wood. His rainproofed overcoat became quite
soggy and damp on the inside, in spite of his efforts to shield himself
from the rain. It was not exactly a comfortable night, but he worried
through it somehow.
At daylight he opened another can of beans and made himself two thick
bean sandwiches, and walked on while he ate them slowly. They tasted
mighty good, Bud thought--but he wished fleetingly that he was back
in the little green cottage on North Sixth Street, getting his own
breakfast. He felt as though he could drink about four cups of coffee;
and as to hotcakes--! But breakfast in the little green cottage recalled
Marie, and Marie was a bitter memory. All the more bitter because he
did not know where burrowed the root of his hot resentment. In a strong
man's love for his home and his mate was it rooted, and drew therefrom
the wormwood of love thwarted and spurned.
After awhile the high air currents flung aside the clouds like curtains
before a doorway. The sunlight flashed out dazzlingly and showed Bud
that the world, even this tumbled world, was good to look upon. His
instincts were all for the great outdoors, and from such the sun brings
quick response. Bud lifted his head, looked out over the hills to where
a bare plain stretched in the far distance, and went on more briskly.
He did not meet any one at all; but that was chiefly because he did not
want to meet any one. He went with his ears and his eyes alert, and was
not above hiding behind a clump of stunted bushes when two horsemen rode
down a canyon trail just below him. Also he searched for roads and then
avoided them. It would be a fat morsel for Marie and her mother to roll
under their tongues, he told himself savagely, if he were arrested and
appeared in the papers as one of that bunch of crooks!
Late that afternoon, by traveling steadily in one direction, he topped a
low ridge and saw an arm of the desert thrust out to meet him. A scooped
gully with gravelly sides and rocky bottom led down that way, and
because his feet were sore from so much sidehill travel, Bud went down.
He was pretty well fagged too, and ready to risk meeting men, if thereby
he might gain a square meal. Though he was not starving, or anywhere
near it, he craved warm food and hot coffee.
So when he presently came upon two sway-backed burros that showed the
sweaty imprint of packsaddles freshly removed, and a couple of horses
also sweat roughened, he straightway assumed that some one was making
camp not far away. One of the horses was hobbled, and they were all
eating hungrily the grass that grew along the gully's sides. Camp was
not only close, but had not yet reached suppertime, Bud guessed from the
well-known range signs.
Two or three minutes proved him right. He came upon a man just driving
the last tent peg. He straightened up and stared at Bud unblinkingly for
a few seconds.
“Howdy, howdy,” he greeted him then with tentative friendliness, and
went on with his work. “You lost?” he added carefully. A man walking
down out of the barren hills, and carrying absolutely nothing in the
way of camp outfit, was enough to whet the curiosity of any one who knew
that country. At the same time curiosity that became too apparent
might be extremely unwelcome. So many things may drive a man into the
hills--but few of them would bear discussion with strangers.
“Yes. I am, and I ain't.” Bud came up and stood with his hands in his
coat pockets, and watched the old fellow start his fire.
“Yeah--how about some supper? If you am, and you ain't as hungry as you
look--”
“I'll tell the world I am, and then some. I ain't had a square meal
since yesterday morning, and I grabbed that at a quick-lunch joint. I'm
open to supper engagements, brother.”
“All right. There's a side of bacon in that kyack over there. Get it out
and slice some off, and we'll have supper before you know it. We will,”
he added pessimistically, “if this dang brush will burn.”
Bud found the bacon and cut according to his appetite. His host got
out a blackened coffeepot and half filled it with water from a dented
bucket, and balanced it on one side of the struggling fire. He remarked
that they had had some rain, to which Bud agreed. He added gravely that
he believed it was going to clear up, though--unless the wind swung back
into the storm quarter. Bud again professed cheerfully to be in perfect
accord. After which conversational sparring they fell back upon the
little commonplaces of the moment.
Bud went into a brush patch and managed to glean an armful of nearly
dry wood, which he broke up with the axe and fed to the fire, coaxing it
into freer blazing. The stranger watched him unobtrusively, critically,
pottering about while Bud fried the bacon.
“I guess you've handled a frying pan before, all right,” he remarked at
last, when the bacon was fried without burning.
Bud grinned. “I saw one in a store window once as I was going by,” he
parried facetiously. “That was quite a while back.”
“Yeah. Well, how's your luck with bannock? I've got it all mixed.”
“Dump her in here, ole-timer,” cried Bud, holding out the frying pan
emptied of all but grease. “Wish I had another hot skillet to turn over
the top.”
“I guess you've been there, all right,” the other chuckled. “Well, I
don't carry but the one frying pan. I'm equipped light, because I've got
to outfit with grub, further along.”
“Well, we'll make out all right, just like this.” Bud propped the handle
of the frying pan high with a forked stick, and stood up. “Say, my
name's Bud Moore, and I'm not headed anywhere in particular. I'm just
traveling in one general direction, and that's with the Coast at my
back. Drifting, that's all. I ain't done anything I'm ashamed of or
scared of, but I am kinda bashful about towns. I tangled with a couple
of crooks, and they're pulled by now, I expect. I'm dodging newspaper
notoriety. Don't want to be named with 'em at all.” He, spread his
hands with an air of finality. “That's my tale of woe,” he supplemented,
“boiled down to essentials. I just thought I'd tell you.”
“Yeah. Well, my name's Cash Markham, and I despise to have folks get
funny over it. I'm a miner and prospector, and I'm outfitting for a trip
for another party, looking up an old location that showed good prospects
ten years ago. Man died, and his wife's trying to get the claim
relocated. Get you a plate outa that furtherest kyack, and a cup.
Bannock looks about done, so we'll eat.”
That night Bud shared Cash Markham's blankets, and in the morning
he cooked the breakfast while Cash Markham rounded up the burros and
horses. In that freemasonry of the wilderness they dispensed with
credentials, save those each man carried in his face and in his manner.
And if you stop to think of it, such credentials are not easily forged,
for nature writes them down, and nature is a truth-loving old dame who
will never lead you far astray if only she is left alone to do her work
in peace.
It transpired, in the course of the forenoon's travel, that Cash Markham
would like to have a partner, if he could find a man that suited. One
guessed that he was fastidious in the matter of choosing his companions,
in spite of the easy way in which he had accepted Bud. By noon they had
agreed that Bud should go along and help relocate the widow's claim.
Cash Markham hinted that they might do a little prospecting on their own
account. It was a country he had long wanted to get into, he said, and
while he intended to do what Mrs. Thompson had hired him to do, still
there was no law against their prospecting on their own account. And
that, he explained, was one reason why he wanted a good man along.
If the Thompson claim was there, Bud could do the work under the
supervision of Cash, and Cash could prospect.
“And anyway, it's bad policy for a man to go off alone in this part of
the country,” he added with a speculative look across the sandy waste
they were skirting at a pace to suit the heavily packed burros. “Case
of sickness or accident--or suppose the stock strays off--it's bad to be
alone.”
“Suits me fine to go with you,” Bud declared. “I'm next thing to broke,
but I've got a lot of muscle I can cash in on the deal. And I know the
open. And I can rock a gold-pan and not spill out all the colors, if
there is any--and whatever else I know is liable to come in handy, and
what I don't know I can learn.”
“That's fair enough. Fair enough,” Markham agreed. “I'll allow you wages
on the Thompson job' till you've earned enough to balance up with the
outfit. After that it'll be fifty-fifty. How'll that be, Bud?”
“Fair enough--fair enough,” Bud retorted with faint mimicry. “If I was
all up in the air a few days ago, I seem to have lit on my feet, and
that's good enough for me right now. We'll let 'er ride that way.”
And the twinkle, as he talked, was back in his eyes, and the smiley
quirk was at the corner of his lips.