“Harvey,”--the voice was almost a whisper--“we have seen some happy
days--sometimes--and you have always been good to me; but, do you----
I mean, when you remember what we have lost, and what we are and must
always remain, do you find in this life we are living, compensation
enough for all that we suffer? Do you? Tell me!”
So! it had come to the other one, too.
* * * * *
A day of fast, hard riding had drawn to its close. Reddy and Dick, and
their “pardners,” and Black Joaquin and his brother, together with two
or three others had made their first day’s run of wild mustangs. Three
or four “bunches” of native wild horses had been surrounded and driven
with a rush, in a whirl of alkali dust, into a juniper corral far
down in the cañon. Then the circling riatas had brought them--bucking
and kicking--down to the earth; and biting and striking at their
captors, they fought for their liberty till exhausted and dripping with
sweat--their heads and knees skinned and mouths bleeding--they found
themselves conquered, necked to gentler horses, or else hoppled.
At early morning Dick had come to Austin’s camp, bringing the
newspaper; and the two had ridden away together. And now that each man
had made his selection in the division of the day’s spoils, Austin
turned his pony’s head toward the far-off tent--a little white speck in
the light of the sunset on one of the distant foothills.
“Well, good-night, boys! I’ll join you again in the morning.” He loped
away to the place where the “little one” was awaiting him.
* * * * *
The morrow’s sun shone blood-red--an enormous ruby disc, in the east
through the smoky haze that hung over the valley still. By eight
o’clock the air was stifling, and the men standing about camp ready
for the second day’s run were impatient to be off. It was easier to
endure the heat when in the saddle and in action, than to be idling
here at the corral. They were wondering at Austin’s delay. And most of
them had been swearing. Finally, Black Joaquin was told to go across to
the white speck on the foothills, and “hustle him up;” for they were
short of men to do the work, if he did not come. So the Mexican threw
himself across the saddle, and digging his spurs into the flanks of the
ugly-looking sorrel, loped over the hill to Austin’s camp.
Half an hour later he came back at racing speed to tell a story which
made the men look at each other with startled glances, and even with
suspicion at himself (so surely are evil deeds laid at the door of one
with an evil reputation); but when they rode over to where the stilled
forms lay beside the rifle whose aim had been true, they saw it had not
been Black Joaquin.
Who, then? Too plainly, they saw. But why?
The newspaper Dick had brought lay folded open at an article that told
the pitiful story of their love, and their sin, and their shame. It was
Johnny, Dick’s partner, who saw it, and read:
“Living among Horse Hunters--An Erring Couple Traced to Nevada--Harvey
Ashton and Mrs. John Q. Morton Seen--The Woman in Male Attire.
“The public no doubt remembers press dispatches of a year ago from
Boston, regarding the sensational elopement of Harvey Ashton and the
young and beautiful wife of John Q. Morton, a prominent and wealthy
commission merchant of that city. All parties concerned moved in the
most exclusive circles of society.
“Young Ashton had returned home from a prolonged tour of Europe to
find that Morton (who, though not related to him, has always assumed
the part of an indulgent father) had just wedded his ward, Miss Mildred
Walters, a handsome young woman many years his junior; and whose
play-fellow he--Ashton--had been when a boy, but whom she had not seen
for a number of years. She had matured into a beautiful, attractive
woman, and Ashton soon fell a willing victim to her charms. Soon after,
society of the Hub was startled and shocked to hear of the elopement of
Harvey Ashton with his benefactor’s wife.
“Subsequently they were discovered to have been in San Francisco, where
all traces of them, for the time, were lost. Nothing was heard of them
again till, some two months ago, when they were seen in Reno, Nevada,
by an old acquaintance who cannot be mistaken in their identity.
“He states he had come down from Virginia City, and was waiting to take
the train for the East, when he saw Ashton pass by the station once
or twice, in company with what was apparently a small, slightly-built
young man, but who, he is positive, is none other than Mrs. Morton in
male attire. He purposely avoided the couple, but inquiries elicited
the facts that Ashton was passing under the name of Austin, and had
stated that his companion was a young brother. It was also learned
that they were practically without means, and were leaving Reno for
the interior part of the State. Later reports locate them in a range
of mountains a short distance from the railroad, where they are with a
number of cowboys and sheep-herders who are out of work, and who are at
present engaged in shooting wild horses, furnishing hides for the San
Francisco market.
“The friend who recognized the couple at once communicated with the
deserted husband, who, it is reported, is on his way West in quest of
the erring pair.”
* * * * *
This was their story, then! The story waiting in the newspaper for
Austin when he got back to the “little one” the evening before.
* * * * *
The afternoon’s shadows were slanting down the valley when the seven
little burros saw Reddy’s wagon come down the long, dusty road leading
toward the river. From where they browsed they could see it go over the
bridge and the alkali flats, on its way to the railroad station in the
hazy valley. The big sheet of canvas, taken from Dick’s bed, covered
something that lay in the bottom of the wagon. Two somethings there
were--side by side, rigid and cold--sharply outlined under the folds of
white canvas.
The wagon creaked, and rattled, and groaned on its way. The afternoon
sun parched and burned the earth, as it had done for weeks. Rabbits
hid under the edges of the greasewood on the side where the greater
shadows fell. The burros still flicked with their absurd tails at the
sand-flies. Buzzing above the canvas were some big green flies that
followed the wagon till after the sun went down. A buzzard circled
overhead; and a lean coyote trotted behind the wagon on the mesa for a
mile or more.
The burros, too, crossed the bridge that night, and morning found them
browsing along the foothills nestling against the mountains across
the valley, where feed was better. Near the base of the mountain, and
not far from the little railroad station, was a graveyard. Treeless,
flowerless, unfenced. There were no headstones, ’tis true; but the
graves were well banked with broken rock, to keep the hungry coyotes
and badgers from digging up the dead.
At the station Black Joaquin had helped lift the new pine boxes into
the wagon. As he watched them start on their ride to the place of
rock-covered mounds near the foothills, he said to the men gathered
about:
“Por Dios! Not so muchos hombres to shoot mostang now!”
And his brother Domingo, who had been drinking, answered with more
freedom:
“’Sta ’ueno! Not so muchos hombres; more mostang por me. ’Sta ’ueno;
si, ’sta muy ’ueno!”
He laughed slyly. Then he went over to the saloon, followed by the
other men.
* * * * *
The little gray burros watched the wagon for a long time, as it went
rattle--rattle--rattle over the stony road. By and by it stopped. Then
they began nibbling again on the scant bunch-grass and white sage.
[Illustration]