A PICTURE IN THE SKY
The searching parties from Refugio and the neighboring ranchos had
all gone east, west, or south. To the north lay an unbroken mesa, or
plateau, having no shelter within a known distance. Nobody dreamed that
the children would follow other than familiar routes, and the first
point explored was the “shearing-place,” belonging to Refugio itself.
This was a cluster of adobe huts upon a little stream. It was four
leagues distant from the Mission and, during the shearing, used as a
folding for the sheep-bands owned by Mr. Manuel, though at other times
these browsed upon the plains or were driven into the mountains. It was
to this folding that old Marta had said the lost ones were bound; and
in looking for them there the first false start was made and the first
valuable hours wasted.
Further than this, had Pablo fulfilled his promise promptly all might
have been different. But the idea of any fixed time did not enter
his narrow mind. His life was always a wandering one and he was well
known throughout that whole wild region. Sometimes he appeared at some
railway station in the wilderness and, during the train’s brief halt,
amused the passengers by his grotesque “dancing” and the idea that he
was an “Indian.” Though, in fact, his mother was a Mexican and his feet
most often strayed toward the south. But he had many homes; in caves
and canyons or poor men’s homes. Most people pitied the “Simple” and a
few feared him.
Such, then was the messenger dispatched with the leaf-letter, and the
twins watched him rapidly disappear, while Carlos said:
“He’ll surely get to Refugio long before the afternoon meal and I hope
Marta will give him plenty of nice, clean food. I wish I could have
some, too. Nuts and things like that are nice for a finish but a nice
lamb chop--my!” Then he observed Carlota still gazing wistfully after
the vanishing Pablo and added, sternly: “Carlota, don’t you stand and
watch him that way. First you know you’ll be running back yourself.”
“Brother, I never! Unless you--”
“I what?”
“Want to go, too.”
“Course I do. Course I will. When--I find my father.” He put his arm
about her and firmly pointed northward.
Her gaze followed his and beheld a vast, sun-heated plain. It wasn’t an
attractive outlook, yet if that were the way to her father’s presence
she could travel it cheerfully.
“Come on. Let’s hurry.”
“Benoni, come!”
The horse stopped feeding and looked at them earnestly, as if in his
mute way he were asking to go back to his pleasant corral; they shook
their heads, decidedly:
“No, no, good boy! Not till we find your master. Then we’ll all go home
together.”
Then he stood very quiet while they mounted him. All his dash and
spirit had departed, and he was as grave as if the whole responsibility
of the situation rested upon him.
“The dear Benoni! He looks as if he feared we’d get into more trouble.
He’s such a wise darling!” exclaimed Carlota.
“There goes another of a girl’s imaginings. I wouldn’t be a girl
for--for anything!”
“I like being a girl, so that’s right for both of us. Which way?”
“North, of course. The compass tells. Wasn’t that the way we started?”
“Yes. But I thought, maybe, the storm--there’s nice mountains over
yonder,” suggested the sister.
“Well, maybe, they’re far enough north. We’ll go to them. They do look
as if they’d be cooler, and in mountains there are always canyons and
holes to sleep in. I wouldn’t mind sleeping on this mesa if it hadn’t
been for that ‘norther.’ If another should come.”
“It won’t. They’re only in great whiles, you know. Make Benoni go. He’s
lazy, the dear! He’s had too much grass.”
Indeed the handsome creature did need urging. He was loath to turn away
from that direction in which his old home lay, and it was with a very
different pace from his usual one that he again set forward.
Then cried Carlota, in fear:
“Carlos, he isn’t lazy! He’s sick. He surely is!”
“Nonsense! He needs encouraging, that’s all.”
After a trick he had been taught by a horse-trainer, once resident at
Refugio, the lad leaned forward and whispered in the animal’s ear.
The ruse seemed to succeed. Benoni quickened his steps to his usual
graceful lope, which jarred his riders no more than the swaying of
a cradle. This movement was so natural and familiar that their own
spirits rose. To a gay little melody which he had learned from Anita,
Carlos began to sing:
“We’re going to our father, oh! we’re going to our father,
We’re going to our father on this happy, sunny day!”
Carlota joined him to the best of her ability, though she had often to
pause in admiration of his genius, which could work into the rhythm
details of home happenings and even the things they passed by the way.
He, also, thought his sister’s voice the sweetest ever heard; and thus,
in their absorbed pride in each other they travelled far before they
realized how intolerably warm it was and how Benoni was again sorely
lagging.
“Never mind. We’re almost to some little hills. There are trees on them
and so there must be water. I guess a drink is what we all want.”
“But, brother, we mustn’t drink him while he’s warm,” warned Carlota.
“I shan’t drink him warm or cold, silly child! But now we’ve thought of
it, aren’t you dreadful thirsty?”
“Terr’ble. If it’s there, I’ll fill my tin box with the water when we
go on again.”
“Maybe we won’t go any further to-day. I wonder how far we are from
Refugio!”
The boy regretted his words as soon as uttered, for his sister turned
and looked backward over the sun-beaten plain in such a homesick way
it made his heart ache. His head also began to ache and he made Benoni
take a right-angle course to that they had been following. The trees
were directly in their line of vision now, and Carlota cried:
“Oh! they’re only a little bit off now!”
He was wiser in plain-lore and answered:
“They may be ten miles. The air’s so clear one can’t tell.”
“Oh, brother! Why, they look as if I could almost touch them!”
“I know that, dear! If it weren’t so--awful--hot!”
Suddenly Benoni stopped, as if he had come to the end of his strength.
Surprised and frightened, the children leaped down and examined the
jaded beast, while Carlota sobbed:
“We shouldn’t ought to have made him ‘carry double’ in this heat. We’re
so terr’ble big now-a-days, Carlos.”
“Yes. I’m afraid we’ve been pretty selfish. After he saved us, too!”
admitted the lad.
“His head’s the hot place. Wait. I know what Miguel does sometimes,
when he’s afraid Amador has overheated himself.”
With that she began to break and bruise the leaves of an herb growing
near, saying:
“I don’t know if they’re the right sort, but they will be wet and cool.
If his head aches, like ours, they may ease it.”
“How will you keep them on? Miguel takes a big handkerchief or a
strap.”
“Why your sash is just the thing. You can put your hammer and knife in
my box till we get the water. There. I’ll do it. I’m a girl. I know how
to make it stick.”
But she had to remount in order to reach the animal’s head and when she
had finished she thought that Benoni looked very funny, indeed. She
laughed:
“He makes me think of an old woman in a cap!”
“He looks sort ashamed of himself, doesn’t he?”
Yet, after a few moments, it was evident that the beast felt refreshed
by the cool application and Carlos exclaimed:
“Good! If it’s helping him it will be nice for us, too.”
“Then I’ll bruise a lot and we can put them in our hats and walk to the
hills. I shall not ride poor Noni another step till he gets well.”
This simple craft, of the crushed leaves, was of infinite value
to the straying children, who sturdily pressed forward toward the
mountains--though these seemed to retreat rather than draw nearer.
After they had been walking for a long time, till they were almost
exhausted, Carlota stopped and clapped her hand to her eyes,
exclaiming:
“Oh! I see things! Houses, and trees, and queer, rushing wagons! Water,
too! Water, water! But they’re all upside down--they are all coming out
of the sky--head first!”
Carlos had seen such strange “pictures in the sky” when he had been
a-field with his father and understood what she meant.
“A mirage--that’s what it is, just a mirage. Which way? Maybe I can see
it, too.”
She pointed out the curious thing and the lad studied it attentively,
then explained:
“I know what those queer wagons are. See? They are leaving the
houses--they are going--going--away. They are like the pictures
in the books, when you hold the page wrong side up. They
are--railway--cars--and--an--engine!”
“Will they come here and hurt us? Like those other pictures of the
accident in the newspaper?”
“Pooh! No. They are a long way off, and cars can run nowhere except on
a track made for them. A track, try to understand, Carlota! is a pair
of iron or steel rails laid on the ground. The car and engine wheels
are fixed on these rails and so they move.”
Carlota wrinkled her brows, then said:
“The way you tell it isn’t very--very understand-able. But how long is
the pair of rails, brother?”
“Hundreds and thousands and, maybe, millions of miles. All around the
whole world, I guess.”
She could not believe this statement. At first, she thought he was
merely teasing her by its boastfulness, then feared that the heat had
turned his brain. Maybe her own had been touched by the sun, too. Maybe
there wasn’t any picture in the sky. And oh! how thirsty she was! She
turned toward Benoni, and cried:
“Why, brother! See how rested Noni looks!”
“Yes. But--you don’t act as if you felt very well yourself. Are you
sick, too?”
“I guess not. Only, do you s’pose we might ride just a little way, now,
Carlos?”
“We must. I’ll help you on him.”
“Not ’less you do, too.”
Another moment, and they were both back in their old places on the
horse’s back and he appeared to have acquired a new strength. He
lifted his grotesquely bandaged head, whinnied, worked his nostrils,
and started forward at a swift pace. Then, clinging to him and to each
other, they dropped their heads and went to sleep; and it was Benoni’s
stopping which made them again open their eyes.
“Oh! Water! Oh! Water--rocks--trees--berries--berries--berries! How
good, how good!” fairly shouted Carlos.
At last they had reached the hills! and, at once, all three of the
weary pilgrims had their mouths in the little stream which ran among
the rocks and were drinking deeply of the saving water.