THE LOST TURQUOISES
THAT night there was a whispered consultation in Mrs. Ware's tent while
Lloyd was undressing in the other one. Sitting on the edge of her
mother's bed, Joyce rapidly outlined a plan which she had thought of on
her way home.
"You see, I haven't done anything special at all to give Lloyd a good
time," she began. "This picnic was Phil's affair. When I was at her
house-party, there was something new on the programme nearly every day.
She's been here nearly a month now, and her visit will soon be over. I'd
like to give her one real larky day before she goes. Mrs. Lee said that
I could have Bogus to-morrow, and, as it is Saturday, the children will
be at home to help you. So I thought it would be fun for Jack and Lloyd
and me to ride over to the Indian school. It's so interesting, and it
doesn't cost anything to get in. Then we could go on to the ostrich
farm just outside of Phoenix. Lloyd wants to get some kodak pictures of
the ostriches. The admission fee will only be seventy-five cents for the
three of us. I can pay that out of the money that Mrs. Link sent, and
get a nice little lunch at Coffee Al's restaurant, and still have enough
left to pay for my hive of bees. We can spend the rest of the afternoon
prowling around the curio shops and picture stores. Lloyd wants to get
ever so many things to take home,--bead belts and moccasins, and things
made out of cactus and orangewood. I haven't said anything to her about
it yet, but Phil said that if we went he would join us."
"I think that is a very good plan," said Mrs. Ware, entering into
whatever Joyce proposed with hearty interest. "You'd better not tell her
to-night, or you'll lie awake talking about it too long, and you'll need
to make an early start, you know."
By half-past eight next morning the little cavalcade was on its way,
Jack and Lloyd riding on ahead, and Phil and Joyce following leisurely.
The road they took led through irrigated lands, and green fields and
blooming orchards greeted them at every turn, instead of the waste
stretches of desert that they were accustomed to seeing.
"I wish you'd look!" exclaimed Lloyd, drawing rein to wait for Joyce
and Phil, and then pointing to a field where a boy was ploughing a long,
straight furrow. "That's an _Indian_ ploughing there! An Indian in a
cadet unifawm, with brass buttons on it. Doesn't it seem queah? Jack
says it's the unifawm of the school, and that they have to weah it when
they hiah out to the fahmahs. This is paht of their education. I like
them best in tomahawks and blankets. It seems moah natural."
"This isn't Hiawatha's land," laughed Phil, "nor the Pathfinder's
country. I was disappointed, too, to find them so tame and
unromantic-looking, but they're certainly more pleasant as neighbours
since they have taken to civilization. You remember the horrible tales
we heard last night."
Lloyd had expected to see a large school-building, but she was surprised
to find in addition so many other buildings. Dormitories, workshops, a
public hall, and the fine, wide streets leading around the central
square gave the appearance of a thrifty little village. They lingered
long in the kindergarten, where the bright-eyed little papooses were so
interested in watching them that they almost forgot the song they were
singing about "Baby's ball so soft and round." They went through the
great kitchens, where Indian girls were learning to cook, and the
tailoring establishment where the boys were turning out the new
uniforms. Down in one of the parlours a little eagle-eyed girl, with
features strikingly like those of Sitting Bull, practised the
five-finger exercises at the piano. Only twice did they see anything
that reminded them of the primitive Indians. In one of the workshops a
swarthy boy sat before a loom such as the old squaws used to have,
weaving patiently a Navajo blanket. And in one of the buildings where
dressmaking was taught there was a table surrounded by busy
bead-workers, working on chains and belts and gaily decorated trinkets
that made Lloyd wish for a bottomless purse. They were all so tempting.
So much time was occupied in watching the classes in wood-carving, and
in listening to recitations in the various rooms, that it was nearly
noon when they reached the ostrich farm. It was not the ranch where the
great birds were hatched and raised, but a large enclosure near the
street-car line, where they were brought to be exhibited to the
tourists. So, after watching the foolish-looking creatures awhile,
laughing at their comical expressions as they tilted mincingly up and
down in what Lloyd called the perfection of cake-walking, and taking
several snap-shots of them, Joyce proposed that they should leave their
horses at a corral farther down the street, and go at once for their
lunch.
It was the first time that Jack had been inside the restaurant, and he
was glad that Phil, who often lunched there, was with them to take the
lead. He felt very young and inexperienced in the ways of the world, as
he marched in behind him, and, while he secretly admired the lordly air
with which Phil gave his orders, he saw that the girls were impressed by
it, too, and he inwardly resented being made to appear such an
insignificant small boy by contrast.
He had supposed that they would sit up on the stools at the
lunch-counters which one could see from the street. That is where he, in
his ignorance, would have piloted the party. But Phil, passing them by,
led the way up-stairs. An attractive-looking dining-room opened out from
the upper hall, but, ignoring that also, Phil kept on to a balcony
overlooking the street, where there were several small tables.
"They serve out here in hot weather," he said, "and it's warm enough
to-day, I'm sure. Besides, we'll be all by ourselves, and can see what
is going on down below. Here, Sambo!"
He beckoned to a coloured waiter passing through the hall, and soon had
him scurrying around in haste to fill their orders. It was the most
enjoyable little lunch Lloyd could remember. Phil, who somehow naturally
assumed the part of host, had never been so entertaining. Time slipped
by so fast while they laughed and talked that the hour was finished
before they realized that it had fairly begun.
Then Phil, putting Lloyd's camera on an opposite table, and focussing it
on the group, showed the waiter how to snap the spring, and hurried back
to his chair to be included in the picture which they all wanted as a
souvenir of the day's excursion.
They made arrangements for the rest of the afternoon after that. Jack
was to take the camera to a photographer's and leave it for the roll of
films to be developed, and then go to a shoestore and the grocery. Phil
had an errand to attend to for Mrs. Lee and a few purchases to make.
Lloyd had a long list of things she hoped to find in the Curio Building.
They agreed to meet at a drug store on that street which had a corner
especially furnished for the comfort of its out-of-town patrons. Besides
numerous easy chairs and tables, where tired customers could be served
at any time from the soda-fountain, there were daily papers to help
pass the time of waiting, and a desk provided with free stationery.
It was just four o'clock when Joyce and Lloyd, coming back to the drug
store with their arms full of packages, found Jack already there waiting
for them. He was weighing himself on the scales near the door.
"I've been knocking around here for the last half-hour," he said. "I'll
go out and look for Phil now, and tell him you are ready, and we'll get
the horses and bring them around."
"How long will it take?" asked Joyce.
"Fifteen or twenty minutes, probably. He's just up the street."
"Then I'll begin a lettah to mothah," said Lloyd, depositing her bundles
on a table, and sitting down at the desk. Joyce picked up an illustrated
paper and settled herself comfortably in a rocking-chair.
The big clock over the soda-fountain slowly dropped its hands down the
dial, but Joyce, absorbed in her reading, and Lloyd in her writing, paid
no attention until half an hour had gone by. Then Lloyd, folding her
letter and slipping it into an envelope, looked up.
"Mercy, Joyce! It's half-past foah! What do you suppose is the mattah?"
Before Joyce could answer, she caught sight of Jack, through the big
show-window, hurrying down the street by himself. He was red in the face
from his rapid walking when he came in, and had a queer expression about
his mouth that he always had when disgusted or out of patience.
"Phil's busy," he announced. "He wants me to ask you if you'd mind
waiting a few minutes longer. He wouldn't ask it, but it's something
quite important."
"We ought to get back as soon as we can," said Joyce, "for I've been
away all day, and there's the ride home still ahead of us. I'm afraid
mamma will start to get supper herself if I'm not there."
"I think I'll put in the time we're waiting in writing to the Walton
girls," said Lloyd, drawing a fresh sheet of paper toward her. Joyce
picked up her story again, and Jack went out into the street, where he
stood tapping one heel against the curbstone, and with his hands thrust
into his pockets. Then he walked to the corner and back, and peered in
through the show-window at the clock over the soda-fountain. When he had
repeated the performance several times, Joyce beckoned for him to come
in.
"It's after five o'clock," she said. "It must be very important business
that keeps him so long."
"It is," answered Jack. "I'll go back once more, and if I can't get him
away, I'll go around and get the horses and we'll just ride off and
leave him."
"Can't get him away!" repeated Joyce. "Where is he?"
"Oh, just up the street a little way," said Jack, carelessly, pointing
over his shoulder with his thumb.
Joyce looked at him steadily an instant, then, as if she had read his
mind, said, with startling abruptness: "Jack Ware, you might as well
tell me. Is he doing what Mr. Ellestad says all the boys out here do
sooner or later, getting mixed up in some of those gambling games?"
There was no evading Joyce when she spoke in that tone. Jack had learned
that long ago. But, with a glance toward Lloyd, who sat with her back
toward them, he only nodded his reply. Startled by the question, Lloyd
turned just in time to see the nod.
"I didn't intend to tell on him," blurted Jack, "but you surprised it
out of me. He put some money on a roulette wheel, and lost all the first
part of the afternoon. Now his luck has begun to change, and he says
he's got to stick by it till he makes back at least a part of what he
started with."
Joyce looked up at the clock. "We ought to be going," she said, drumming
nervously on the arm of her chair with her fingers. Then she hesitated,
a look of sisterly concern on her face. "I hate, though, to go off and
leave him there. No telling when he'll come home if he feels he is free
to stay as long as he pleases. Goodness, Jack! I'm glad it isn't you.
I'd be having a fit if it were, and I can't help thinking how poor Elsie
would feel if she knew it. Lloyd, what do you think we ought to do?"
"I think we ought to go straight off and leave him!" she answered,
hotly. "It's perfectly horrid of him to so fah fo'get himself as a
gentleman as to pay no attention to his promises. He made a positive
engagement with us to meet us heah at foah o'clock, and now it's aftah
five. I nevah had a boy treat me that way befoah, and I must say I
haven't much use for one that will act so."
Presently, after some slight discussion, the girls slowly gathered up
the bundles and walked up the street to the corral. Jack hurried on
ahead, so that by the time they reached it, the men there had the ponies
saddled and were waiting to help them mount and tie on the packages by
the many leather thongs which fringed the saddles for that purpose.
It was a quiet ride homeward. A cloud seemed to have settled over their
gay spirits. Nobody laughed, nobody spoke much. The story of Alaka was
still fresh in each mind, and what Mrs. Lee had said about the curse of
the West, and the fate of the men she had known who had become possessed
by the same fever.
They remembered how Jo had come in at daylight, red-eyed and sullen,
after his night's losses, for the lucky feeling which seized him at the
sight of his cut fingers had been a mistaken omen of success. All that
he had saved in months of service had vanished before sunrise in the
same way that Alaka's turquoises and shells and eyes had gone.
Deeper than the indignation in Lloyd's heart, deeper than her sense of
wounded pride that Phil should have been so indifferent about keeping
his engagement to meet them, was a sore feeling of disappointment in
him. He had seemed so strong and manly that she had thought him above
the weakness of yielding to such temptations.
She recalled the expression of his face the night before when he drew
back from the firelight into the shadow, and pulled his hat over his
eyes, as Mr. Ellestad began the story of Alaka. Evidently he had played
Alaka's game before.
Ah, that night before! How the whole moonlighted scene rolled back over
her memory, as she rode along now, slightly in advance of Joyce and
Jack. Phil had been with her that night before, and, as the sweet
strains of the Bedouin love-song floated out on the stillness of the
desert, something had stirred in her girlish heart as she looked up at
him. A vague wonder if it were possible that in years to come this would
prove to be the one the stars had destined for her. And, as if in answer
to her unspoken wonder, his voice had joined in, higher and sweeter than
all the others, as he smiled down into her eyes. But now--there was a
little twinge of pain when she thought that he wasn't a prince at all
when measured by the yard-stick of old Hildgardmar and her father, much
less the one written in the stars for her. He wasn't strong, and he
wasn't honourable if he gambled, and she told herself that she was glad
that she knew it. And now that she had found out how much she had been
mistaken in him, she didn't care any more for his friendship, and that
she never intended to have anything more to do with him.
A dozen times on the way home Joyce said to herself: "Oh, what if it had
been Jack!" And, thinking of Elsie and the father so far away across the
seas, she wished that she could do something to get him away from the
surroundings that were sure to work to his undoing if he persisted in
staying there.
Supper was ready when they reached home. Afterward there were all
Lloyd's purchases to be unwrapped and admired. Mary had hoped for a
candy-pull, as it was Saturday, and they had not had one during Lloyd's
visit; but the girls were too tired after so many miles in the saddle,
and by nine o'clock all lights were out and a deep quiet reigned over
Ware's Wigwam and the tents.
The moonlight flooding the white canvas kept Lloyd awake for awhile. As
she lay there, listening to the distant barking of coyotes, and going
over the events of the day, she heard the approaching sound of hoof
beats. Some lonely horseman was coming down the desert road. She raised
herself on her elbow to listen, recognizing the sound. It was Phil's
horse clattering over the little bridge. But it paused under the
pepper-trees.
"I suppose Phil has come up to apologize," she said to herself, "but he
might as well save himself the trouble. No explanation could evah
explain away the fact that he was rude to us and that he _gambled_. I
could forgive the first, but I nevah can forgive being so disappointed
in him."
A moment later, seeing no light, and evidently concluding that his visit
was untimely, he turned and rode back toward the ranch. Lloyd, still
leaning on her elbow, strained her ears to listen till the last footfall
died away in the distance.
"He'll be back in the mawning," she thought, as she laid her head on the
pillow. "He always comes Sunday mawnings; but he'll not find us this
time, because we'll be gone befoah he gets heah."
Joyce had arranged to keep Bogus part of the next day, so that they
could ride into Phoenix to church. So it happened that when Phil came up
next morning, it was to find nobody but Mary in sight. Mrs. Ware had
gone to the seat under the willows to read to Norman and Holland.
The beehive had been brought over during Joyce's absence the day before,
and placed in the shade of the bushy umbrella-tree where the hammock
swung, and Mary was swinging in the hammock now, with a book in her lap.
It was closed over one finger to keep the place, for she was listening
to the droning of the bees, breathing in the sweetness that floated in
across the desert from its acres of vivid bloom, and paying more
attention to the sunny, vibrant world about her than to the hymn she was
learning.
"What are you doing, Mary?" he called, as his step on the bridge made
her look around. She held up a battered old volume of poems, and moved
over in the hammock to make room for him beside her.
"I'm learning a hymn. That's the way we always earned our missionary
money back in Kansas. I'm going to Sunday school with Hazel and George
this afternoon in the surrey over to the schoolhouse. Her uncle has one
there. I didn't have any pennies to take, so mamma said I could begin
learning hymns again, as I used to do back home."
As usual Mary rattled on, scarcely pausing to take breath or give her
listener a chance to make reply.
"This isn't one of the singing hymns, the kind they have in church. It's
by Isaac Watts. I like it because it's about bees, and it's so easy to
say:
"How doth the little busy bee
Improve each shining hour,
And gather honey all the day
From every opening flower.'
"Joyce picked it out for me, and said that she guessed that Isaac Watts
must have gone to the School of the Bees himself, and that was where he
learned that 'Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do.' The
bees hate idle hands, you know, that's the drones, and, although they
are patient with them longer than you'd suppose they'd be, it always
ends in their stinging the drones to death.
"And Lloyd said it was a pity that some other people she knew not a
thousand miles away couldn't go to school to the bees and learn that
about Satan's finding mischief for idle hands to do.
"And Joyce said yes, it was, for it was too bad for such a fine fellow
to get into trouble just because he was a drone, and had no ambition to
make anything of himself. And I asked them who they meant, but they just
laughed at each other and wouldn't tell me. I don't see why big girls
always want to be so mysterious about things and act as if they had
secrets. Do you?"
"No, indeed!" answered Phil, in his most sympathetic manner. He stooped
and picked a long blade of grass at his feet.
"And Joyce said that if Alaka had gone to school to the bees, he
wouldn't have lost his eyes, and Lloyd said that if somebody kept on,
he would lose at least his turquoises. When I asked her what she meant,
she said, oh, she was just thinking of what Mr. Ellestad told at the
picnic, that the Indians thought the turquoises were their most precious
stones because they stole their colour from the sky, and she called
turquoise the friendship stone because it was true blue."
Phil began whistling softly, as he pulled the blade of grass back and
forth between his fingers.
"So they think that somebody is like Alaka, do they?" he asked,
presently, "in danger of losing his turquoises, his friendship stones.
Well, I can imagine instances when that would be as bad for Alaka as
losing his eyes."
Phil had walked up to the Wigwam more buoyantly than usual that morning.
He knew that he owed the girls an apology for not meeting them as he had
promised, and he was prepared to make it so penitently and gracefully
that he was sure that they would accept his excuses without a question.
The big roll of bills in his pocket, which he had won by a lucky turn of
the wheel, did not lie heavy on his conscience at all. It rather added
to his buoyance of spirit, for it was so large that it would enable him
to do several things he had long wished to do. Because of it, too, he
had come up to plan another picnic, this time an excursion to Paradise
Valley on the other side of Camelback.
But Mary's report of the conversation which had puzzled her gave him an
uncomfortable feeling. He could not fail to understand its meaning.
Evidently the girls knew what had detained him in town and were
displeased with him.
"Oh, aren't you going to stay for dinner?" asked Mary, as he slowly rose
and stretched himself. "It's Sunday, you know, and we always expect you
on Sunday."
"No, thank you," he answered, yawning. "I've changed my programme
to-day."
"Aren't you coming back this afternoon?" she asked, anxiously. "They'll
all be home then."
He studied the distant buttes a moment before he answered, then squared
back his shoulders in a decided way, settling his hat firmly on his
head.
"No," he answered, finally, "I promised a fellow I met in town at the
hotel the other day that I'd ride over and see him soon. He has a camp
over on the other side of Hole-in-the-Rock, with an old duffer that's
out here for rheumatism. I took a fancy to the fellow the minute I saw
him, and it turns out that he's the cousin of a boy I knew at military
school. It's funny the way you run across people that way out here."
One of Phil's greatest charms to Mary was the deferential way he had of
talking to her as if she were his age, and taking the trouble to explain
his actions. Now, as he turned away, with a pleasant good morning, it
was with as polite a lifting of his hat as if she had been nineteen
instead of nine.
She watched him swing down the road with his quick, military step, never
dreaming in her unsuspecting little heart that _he_ was the mysterious
person who, the girls wished, could learn about Satan and the work he
finds for idle hands. Nor did she dream that the words she had so
innocently repeated were still sounding in his ears: "If somebody keeps
on, he'll at least lose his turquoises. It's the friendship stone--true
blue!"