E-text prepared by Tim Lindell, David E. Brown, and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made
available by Internet Archive (https://archive.org)
Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
file which includes the original illustrations.
See 59548-h.htm or 59548-h.zip:
(https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/59548/pg59548-images.html)
or
(https://www.gutenberg.org/files/59548/59548-h.zip)
Images of the original pages are available through
Internet Archive. See
https://archive.org/details/tappansburroothe00grey
Transcriber’s note:
Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
TAPPAN’S BURRO
[Illustration]
* * * * * *
BOOKS BY ZANE GREY
_Tappan’s Burro_
_Tales of Lonely Trails_
_To the Last Man_
_Wanderer of the Wasteland_
_The Mysterious Rider_
_The Man of the Forest_
_Tales of Fishes_
_The Desert of Wheat_
_The U. P. Trail_
_Wildfire_
_The Border Legion_
_The Rainbow Trail_
_The Lone Star Ranger_
_The Light of Western Stars_
_Desert Gold_
_The Heritage of the Desert_
_Riders of the Purple Sage_
_The Young Forester_
_The Young Pitcher_
_The Young Lion-Hunter_
_Ken Ward in the Jungle_
HARPER & BROTHERS
_Established 1817_
* * * * * *
[Illustration: SWAYING BACKWARD, HE FELL INTO THE UPBANKED WALL OF
SNOW, AND WENT OUT OF SIGHT, EXCEPT FOR HIS BOOTS, ONE OF WHICH STILL
HELD THE CRUDE SNOWSHOE.]
TAPPAN’S BURRO AND OTHER STORIES
by
ZANE GREY
Author of
“Wanderer of the Wasteland,” “The Mysterious Rider,”
“The U. P. Trail,” “Wildfire,” Etc.
With Illustrations in Color by
Charles S. Chapman and Frank Street
[Illustration]
Harper & Brothers Publishers
New York and London
TAPPAN’S BURRO
Copyright, 1923
By Zane Grey
Printed in the U. S. A.
First Edition
[Illustration]
CONTENTS
PAGE
I. TAPPAN’S BURRO 1
II. THE GREAT SLAVE 81
III. YAQUI 113
IV. TIGRE 171
V. THE RUBBER HUNTER 203
[Illustration]
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
SWAYING BACKWARD, HE FELL INTO THE UPBANKED WALL OF
SNOW, AND WENT OUT OF SIGHT, EXCEPT FOR HIS BOOTS,
ONE OF WHICH STILL HELD THE CRUDE SNOWSHOE _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
THIS WAS THE SUPREME TEST FOR HIS NEVER PROVEN ENDURANCE.
AND HE WAS ALL BUT VANQUISHED 22
ON ALL THE FOUR WINDS BREATHED VOICES WHISPERING OF
HIS FUTURE 82
OUT OF THE GRAY FOG BURNED DUSKY EYES HALF VEILED BY
DUSKY HAIR--“EMIHIYAH COMES,” SHE SAID. “SIENA
WAITS,” HE REPLIED 108
ALONE ON A RIDGE OF RISING GROUND YAQUI FACED THE BACK
TRAIL AND WATCHED WITH FALCON EYES 114
YAQUI KNEW THAT NEVER AGAIN WOULD HE SEE HIS WIFE AND
BABY--NEVER HEAR FROM THEM--NEVER KNOW WHAT
BECAME OF THEM 146
TWICE SHE STARTED FORWARD, ONLY TO HANG BACK 176
TAPPAN’S BURRO
[Illustration]
TAPPAN’S BURRO
I
Tappan gazed down upon the newly-born little burro with something
of pity and consternation. It was not a vigorous offspring of the
redoubtable Jennie, champion of all the numberless burros he had driven
in his desert-prospecting years. He could not leave it there to die.
Surely it was not strong enough to follow its mother. And to kill it
was beyond him.
“Poor little devil!” soliloquized Tappan. “Reckon neither Jennie nor I
wanted it to be born.... I’ll have to hold up in this camp a few days.
You can never tell what a burro will do. It might fool us an’ grow
strong all of a sudden.”
Whereupon Tappan left Jennie and her tiny, gray lop-eared baby to
themselves, and leisurely set about making permanent camp. The water
at this oasis was not much to his liking, but it was drinkable, and
he felt he must put up with it. For the rest the oasis was desirable
enough as a camping site. Desert wanderers like Tappan favored the
lonely water holes. This one was up under the bold brow of the
Chocolate Mountains, where rocky wall met the desert sand, and a green
patch of _palo verdes_ and mesquites proved the presence of water. It
had a magnificent view down a many-leagued slope of desert growths,
across the dark belt of green and the shining strip of red that marked
the Rio Colorado, and on to the upflung Arizona land, range lifting to
range until the saw-toothed peaks notched the blue sky.
Locked in the iron fastnesses of these desert mountains was gold.
Tappan, if he had any calling, was a prospector. But the lure of gold
did not bind him to this wandering life any more than the freedom of
it. He had never made a rich strike. About the best he could ever do
was to dig enough gold to grubstake himself for another prospecting
trip into some remote corner of the American Desert. Tappan knew the
arid Southwest from San Diego to the Pecos River and from Picacho on
the Colorado to the Tonto Basin. Few prospectors had the strength and
endurance of Tappan. He was a giant in build, and at thirty-five had
never yet reached the limit of his physical force.
With hammer and pick and magnifying glass Tappan scaled the bare
ridges. He was not an expert in testing minerals. He knew he might
easily pass by a rich vein of ore. But he did his best, sure at least
that no prospector could get more than he out of the pursuit of gold.
Tappan was more of a naturalist than a prospector, and more of a
dreamer than either. Many were the idle moments that he sat staring
down the vast reaches of the valleys, or watching some creature of the
wasteland, or marveling at the vivid hues of desert flowers.
Tappan waited two weeks at this oasis for Jennie’s baby burro to grow
strong enough to walk. And the very day that Tappan decided to break
camp he found signs of gold at the head of a wash above the oasis.
Quite by chance, as he was looking for his burros, he struck his pick
into a place no different from a thousand others there, and hit into a
pocket of gold. He cleaned out the pocket before sunset, the richer for
several thousand dollars.
“You brought me luck,” said Tappan, to the little gray burro staggering
round its mother. “Your name is Jenet. You’re Tappan’s burro, an’ I
reckon he’ll stick to you.”
* * * * *
Jenet belied the promise of her birth. Like a weed in fertile ground
she grew. Winter and summer Tappan patroled the sand beats from one
trading post to another, and his burros traveled with him. Jenet had
an especially good training. Her mother had happened to be a remarkably
good burro before Tappan had bought her. And Tappan had patience; he
found leisure to do things, and he had something of pride in Jenet.
Whenever he happened to drop into Ehrenberg or Yuma, or any freighting
station, some prospector always tried to buy Jenet. She grew as large
as a medium-sized mule, and a three-hundred-pound pack was no load to
discommode her.
Tappan, in common with most lonely wanderers of the desert, talked to
his burro. As the years passed this habit grew, until Tappan would talk
to Jenet just to hear the sound of his voice. Perhaps that was all
which kept him human.
“Jenet, you’re worthy of a happier life,” Tappan would say, as he
unpacked her after a long day’s march over the barren land. “You’re a
ship of the desert. Here we are, with grub an’ water, a hundred miles
from any camp. An’ what but you could have fetched me here? No horse!
No mule! No man! Nothin’ but a camel, an’ so I call you ship of the
desert. But for you an’ your kind, Jenet, there’d be no prospectors,
and few gold mines. Reckon the desert would be still an unknown
waste.... You’re a great beast of burden, Jenet, an’ there’s no one to
sing your praise.”
And of a golden sunrise, when Jenet was packed and ready to face the
cool, sweet fragrance of the desert, Tappan was wont to say:
“Go along with you, Jenet. The mornin’s fine. Look at the mountains
yonder callin’ us. It’s only a step down there. All purple an’ violet!
It’s the life for us, my burro, an’ Tappan’s as rich as if all these
sands were pearls.”
But sometimes, at sunset, when the way had been long and hot and rough,
Tappan would bend his shaggy head over Jenet, and talk in different
mood.
“Another day gone, Jenet, another journey ended--an’ Tappan is only
older, wearier, sicker. There’s no reward for your faithfulness. I’m
only a desert rat, livin’ from hole to hole. No home! No face to
see.... Some sunset, Jenet, we’ll reach the end of the trail. An’
Tappan’s bones will bleach in the sands. An’ no one will know or care!”
* * * * *
When Jenet was two years old she would have taken the blue ribbon in
competition with all the burros of the Southwest. She was unusually
large and strong, perfectly proportioned, sound in every particular,
and practically tireless. But these were not the only characteristics
that made prospectors envious of Tappan. Jenet had the common virtues
of all good burros magnified to an unbelievable degree. Moreover, she
had sense and instinct that to Tappan bordered on the supernatural.
During these years Tappan’s trail crisscrossed the mineral region of
the Southwest. But, as always, the rich strike held aloof. It was
like the pot of gold buried at the foot of the rainbow. Jenet knew
the trails and the water holes better than Tappan. She could follow a
trail obliterated by drifting sand or cut out by running water. She
could scent at long distance a new spring on the desert or a strange
water hole. She never wandered far from camp so that Tappan had to
walk far in search of her. Wild burros, the bane of most prospectors,
held no charm for Jenet. And she had never yet shown any especial
liking for a tame burro. This was the strangest feature of Jenet’s
complex character. Burros were noted for their habit of pairing off,
and forming friendships for one or more comrades. These relations were
permanent. But Jenet still remained fancy free.
Tappan scarcely realized how he relied upon this big, gray, serene
beast of burden. Of course, when chance threw him among men of his
calling he would brag about her. But he had never really appreciated
Jenet. In his way Tappan was a brooding, plodding fellow, not conscious
of sentiment. When he bragged about Jenet it was her good qualities
upon which he dilated. But what he really liked best about her were the
little things of every day.
During the earlier years of her training Jenet had been a thief. She
would pretend to be asleep for hours just to get a chance to steal
something out of camp. Tappan had broken this habit in its incipiency.
But he never quite trusted her. Jenet was a burro.
Jenet ate anything offered her. She could fare for herself or go
without. Whatever Tappan had left from his own meals was certain to
be rich dessert for Jenet. Every meal time she would stand near the
camp fire, with one great long ear drooping, and the other standing
erect. Her expression was one of meekness, of unending patience. She
would lick a tin can until it shone resplendent. On long, hard, barren
trails Jenet’s deportment did not vary from that where the water holes
and grassy patches were many. She did not need to have grass or grain.
Brittle-bush and sage were good fare for her. She could eat greasewood,
a desert plant that protected itself with a sap as sticky as varnish
and far more dangerous to animals. She could eat cacti. Tappan had seen
her break off leaves of the prickly pear cactus, and stamp upon them
with her forefeet, mashing off the thorns, so that she could consume
the succulent pulp. She liked mesquite beans, and leaves of willow, and
all the trailing vines of the desert. And she could subsist in an arid
waste land where a man would have died in short order.
No ascent or descent was too hard or dangerous for Jenet, provided
it was possible of accomplishment. She would refuse a trail that was
impassable. She seemed to have an uncanny instinct both for what she
could do, and what was beyond a burro. Tappan had never known her
to fail on something to which she stuck persistently. Swift streams
of water, always bugbears to burros, did not stop Jenet. She hated
quicksand, but could be trusted to navigate it, if that were possible.
When she stepped gingerly, with little inch steps, out upon thin crust
of ice or salty crust of desert sink hole, Tappan would know that it
was safe, or she would turn back. Thunder and lightning, intense heat
or bitter cold, the sirocco sand storm of the desert, the white dust of
the alkali wastes--these were all the same to Jenet.
* * * * *
One August, the hottest and driest of his desert experience, Tappan
found himself working a most promising claim in the lower reaches of
the Panamint Mountains on the northern slope above Death Valley. It was
a hard country at the most favorable season; in August it was terrible.
The Panamints were infested by various small gangs of
desperadoes--outlaw claim jumpers where opportunity afforded--and
out-and-out robbers, even murderers where they could not get the gold
any other way.
Tappan had been warned not to go into this region alone. But he never
heeded any warnings. And the idea that he would ever strike a claim or
dig enough gold to make himself an attractive target for outlaws seemed
preposterous and not worth considering. Tappan had become a wanderer
now from the unbreakable habit of it. Much to his amaze he struck a
rich ledge of free gold in a canyon of the Panamints; and he worked
from daylight until dark. He forgot about the claim jumpers, until one
day he saw Jenet’s long ears go up in the manner habitual with her when
she saw strange men. Tappan watched the rest of that day, but did not
catch a glimpse of any living thing. It was a desolate place, shut in,
red-walled, hazy with heat, and brooding with an eternal silence.
Not long after that Tappan discovered boot tracks of several men
adjacent to his camp and in an out-of-the-way spot, which persuaded him
that he was being watched. Claim jumpers who were not going to jump his
claim in this torrid heat, but meant to let him dig the gold and then
kill him. Tappan was not the kind of man to be afraid. He grew wrathful
and stubborn. He had six small canvas bags of gold and did not mean to
lose them. Still, he was worried.
“Now, what’s best to do?” he pondered. “I mustn’t give it away that
I’m wise. Reckon I’d better act natural. But I can’t stay here longer.
My claim’s about worked out. An’ these jumpers are smart enough to know
it.... I’ve got to make a break at night. What to do?”
Tappan did not want to cache the gold, for in that case, of course, he
would have to return for it. Still, he reluctantly admitted to himself
that this was the best way to save it. Probably these robbers were
watching him day and night. It would be most unwise to attempt escaping
by traveling up over the Panamints.
“Reckon my only chance is goin’ down into Death Valley,” soliloquized
Tappan, grimly.
The alternative thus presented was not to his liking. Crossing Death
Valley at this season was always perilous, and never attempted in
the heat of day. And at this particular time of intense torridity,
when the day heat was unendurable and the midnight furnace gales were
blowing, it was an enterprise from which even Tappan shrank. Added to
this were the facts that he was too far west of the narrow part of the
valley, and even if he did get across he would find himself in the most
forbidding and desolate region of the Funeral Mountains.
Thus thinking and planning, Tappan went about his mining and camp
tasks, trying his best to act natural. But he did not succeed. It
was impossible, while expecting a shot at any moment, to act as if
there was nothing on his mind. His camp lay at the bottom of a rocky
slope. A tiny spring of water made verdure of grass and mesquite,
welcome green in all that stark iron nakedness. His camp site was out
in the open, on the bench near the spring. The gold claim that Tappan
was working was not visible from any vantage point either below or
above. It lay back at the head of a break in the rocky wall. It had
two virtues--one that the sun never got to it, and the other that it
was well hidden. Once there, Tappan knew he could not be seen. This,
however, did not diminish his growing uneasiness. The solemn stillness
was a menace. The heat of the day appeared to be augmenting to a degree
beyond his experience. Every few moments Tappan would slip back through
a narrow defile in the rocks and peep from his covert down at the camp.
On the last of these occasions he saw Jenet out in the open. She stood
motionless. Her long ears were erect. In an instant Tappan became
strung with thrilling excitement. His keen eyes searched every approach
to his camp. And at last in the gully below to the right he discovered
two men crawling along from rock to rock. Jenet had seen them enter
that gully and was now watching for them to appear.
Tappan’s excitement gave place to a grimmer emotion. These stealthy
visitors were going to hide in ambush, and kill him as he returned to
camp.
“Jenet, reckon what I owe you is a whole lot,” muttered Tappan. “They’d
have got me sure.... But now--”
Tappan left his tools, and crawled out of his covert into the jumble
of huge rocks toward the left of the slope. He had a six-shooter. His
rifle he had left in camp. Tappan had seen only two men, but he knew
there were more than that, if not actually near at hand at the moment,
then surely not far away. And his chance was to worm his way like an
Indian down to camp. With the rifle in his possession he would make
short work of the present difficulty.
“Lucky Jenet’s right in camp!” said Tappan, to himself. “It beats hell
how she does things!”
Tappan was already deciding to pack and hurry away. On the moment Death
Valley did not daunt him. This matter of crawling and gliding along
was work unsuited to his great stature. He was too big to hide behind
a little shrub or a rock. And he was not used to stepping lightly.
His hobnailed boots could not be placed noiselessly upon the stones.
Moreover, he could not progress without displacing little bits of
weathered rock. He was sure that keen ears not too far distant could
have heard him. But he kept on, making good progress around that slope
to the far side of the canyon. Fortunately, he headed the gully up
which his ambushers were stealing. On the other hand, this far side
of the canyon afforded but little cover. The sun had gone down back of
the huge red mass of the mountain. It had left the rocks so hot Tappan
could not touch them with his bare hands.
He was about to stride out from his last covert and make a run for it
down the rest of the slope, when, surveying the whole amphitheater
below him, he espied the two men coming up out of the gully, headed
toward his camp. They looked in his direction. Surely they had heard
or seen him. But Tappan perceived at a glance that he was the closer
to the camp. Without another moment of hesitation, he plunged from his
hiding place, down the weathered slope. His giant strides set the loose
rocks sliding and rattling. The men saw him. The foremost yelled to the
one behind him. Then they both broke into a run. Tappan reached the
level of the bench, and saw he could beat either of them into the camp.
Unless he were disabled! He felt the wind of a heavy bullet before he
heard it strike the rocks beyond. Then followed the boom of a Colt. One
of his enemies had halted to shoot. This spurred Tappan to tremendous
exertion. He flew over the rough ground, scarcely hearing the rapid
shots. He could no longer see the man who was firing. But the first
one was in plain sight, running hard, not yet seeing he was out of the
race.
When he became aware of that he halted, and dropping on one knee,
leveled his gun at the running Tappan. The distance was scarcely sixty
yards. His first shot did not allow for Tappan’s speed. His second
kicked up the gravel in Tappan’s face. Then followed three more shots
in rapid succession. The man divined that Tappan had a rifle in camp.
Then he steadied himself, waiting for the moment when Tappan had
to slow down and halt. As Tappan reached his camp and dove for his
rifle, the robber took time for his last aim, evidently hoping to get
a stationary target. But Tappan did not get up from behind his camp
duffel. It had been a habit of his to pile his boxes of supplies and
roll of bedding together, and cover them with a canvas. He poked his
rifle over the top of this and shot the robber.
Then, leaping up, he ran forward to get sight of the second one. This
man began to run along the edge of the gully. Tappan fired rapidly
at him. The third shot knocked the fellow down. But he got up, and
yelling, as if for succor, he ran off. Tappan got another shot before
he disappeared.
“Ahuh!” grunted Tappan, grimly. His keen gaze came back to survey
the fallen robber, and then went out over the bench, across the wide
mouth of the canyon. Tappan thought he had better utilize time to pack
instead of pursuing the fleeing man.
Reloading the rifle, he hurried out to find Jenet. She was coming in to
camp.
“Shore you’re a treasure, old girl!” ejaculated Tappan.
Never in his life had he packed Jenet, or any other burro, so quickly.
His last act was to drink all he could hold, fill his two canteens, and
make Jenet drink. Then, rifle in hand, he drove the burro out of camp,
round the corner of the red wall, to the wide gateway that opened down
into Death Valley.
Tappan looked back more than he looked ahead. And he had traveled down
a mile or more before he began to breathe more easily. He had escaped
the claim jumpers. Even if they did show up in pursuit now, they could
never catch him. Tappan believed he could travel faster and farther
than any men of that ilk. But they did not appear. Perhaps the crippled
one had not been able to reach his comrades in time. More likely,
however, the gang had no taste for a chase in that torrid heat.
Tappan slowed his stride. He was almost as wet with sweat as if he had
fallen into the spring. The great beads rolled down his face. And there
seemed to be little streams of fire trickling down his breast. But
despite this, and his labored panting for breath, not until he halted
in the shade of a rocky wall did he realize the heat.
It was terrific. Instantly then he knew he was safe from pursuit. But
he knew also that he faced a greater peril than that of robbers. He
could fight evil men, but he could not fight this heat.
So he rested there, regaining his breath. Already thirst was acute.
Jenet stood near by, watching him. Tappan, with his habit of humanizing
the burro, imagined that Jenet looked serious. A moment’s thought was
enough for Tappan to appreciate the gravity of his situation. He was
about to go down into the upper end of Death Valley--a part of that
country unfamiliar to him. He must cross it, and also the Funeral
Mountains, at a season when a prospector who knew the trails and water
holes would have to be forced to undertake it. Tappan had no choice.
His rifle was too hot to hold, so he stuck it in Jenet’s pack; and,
burdened only by a canteen of water, he set out, driving the burro
ahead. Once he looked back up the wide-mouthed canyon. It appeared to
smoke with red heat veils. The silence was oppressive.
Presently he turned the last corner that obstructed sight of Death
Valley. Tappan had never been appalled by any aspect of the desert,
but it was certain that here he halted. Back in his mountain-walled
camp the sun had passed behind the high domes, but here it still held
most of the valley in its blazing grip. Death Valley looked a ghastly,
glaring level of white, over which a strange dull leaden haze drooped
like a blanket. Ghosts of mountain peaks appeared to show dim and
vague. There was no movement of anything. No wind! The valley was dead.
Desolation reigned supreme. Tappan could not see far toward either end
of the valley. A few miles of white glare merged at last into leaden
pall. A strong odor, not unlike sulphur, seemed to add weight to the
air.
Tappan strode on, mindful that Jenet had decided opinions of her own.
She did not want to go straight ahead or to right or left, but back.
That was the one direction impossible for Tappan. And he had to resort
to a rare measure--that of beating her. But at last Jenet accepted the
inevitable and headed down into the stark and naked plain. Soon Tappan
reached the margin of the zone of shade cast by the mountain and was
now exposed to the sun. The difference seemed tremendous. He had been
hot, oppressed, weighted. It was now as if he was burned through his
clothes, and walked on red-hot sands.
When Tappan ceased to sweat and his skin became dry, he drank half a
canteen of water, and slowed his stride. Inured to desert hardship
as he was, he could not long stand this. Jenet did not exhibit any
lessening of vigor. In truth what she showed now was an increasing
nervousness. It was almost as if she scented an enemy. Tappan never
before had such faith in her. Jenet was equal to this task.
With that blazing sun on his back, Tappan felt he was being pursued
by a furnace. He was compelled to drink the remaining half of his
first canteen of water. Sunset would save him. Two more hours of such
insupportable heat would lay him prostrate.
The ghastly glare of the valley took on a reddish tinge. The heat was
blinding Tappan. The time came when he walked beside Jenet with a hand
on her pack, for his eyes could no longer endure the furnace glare.
Even with them closed he knew when the sun sank behind the Panamints.
That fire no longer followed him. And the red left his eyelids.
With the sinking of the sun the world of Death Valley changed. It
smoked with heat veils. But the intolerable constant burn was gone. The
change was so immense that it seemed to have brought coolness.
In the twilight--strange, ghostly, somber, silent as death--Tappan
followed Jenet off the sand, down upon the silt and borax level,
to the crusty salt. Before dark Jenet halted at a sluggish belt of
fluid--acid, it appeared to Tappan. It was not deep. And the bottom
felt stable. But Jenet refused to cross. Tappan trusted her judgment
more than his own. Jenet headed to the left and followed the course of
the strange stream.
Night intervened. A night without stars or sky or sound, hot,
breathless, charged with some intangible current! Tappan dreaded the
midnight furnace winds of Death Valley. He had never encountered them.
He had heard prospectors say that any man caught in Death Valley when
these gales blew would never get out to tell the tale. And Jenet
seemed to have something on her mind. She was no longer a leisurely,
complacent burro. Tappan imagined Jenet seemed stern. Most assuredly
she knew now which way she wanted to travel. It was not easy for Tappan
to keep up with her, and ten paces beyond him she was out of sight.
At last Jenet headed the acid wash, and turned across the valley into a
field of broken salt crust, like the roughened ice of a river that had
broken and jammed, then frozen again. Impossible was it to make even a
reasonable headway. It was a zone, however, that eventually gave way
to Jenet’s instinct for direction. Tappan had long ceased to try to
keep his bearings. North, south, east, and west were all the same to
him. The night was a blank--the darkness a wall--the silence a terrible
menace flung at any living creature. Death Valley had endured them
millions of years before living creatures had existed. It was no place
for a man.
Tappan was now three hundred and more feet below sea level, in the
aftermath of a day that had registered one hundred and forty-five
degrees of heat. He knew, when he began to lose thought and
balance--when only the primitive instincts directed his bodily machine.
And he struggled with all his will power to keep hold of his sense
of sight and feeling. He hoped to cross the lower level before the
midnight gales began to blow.
Tappan’s hope was vain. According to record, once in a long season of
intense heat, there came a night when the furnace winds broke their
schedule, and began early. The misfortune of Tappan was that he had
struck this night.
Suddenly it seemed that the air, sodden with heat, began to move. It
had weight. It moved soundlessly and ponderously. But it gathered
momentum. Tappan realized what was happening. The blanket of heat
generated by the day was yielding to outside pressure. Something had
created a movement of the hotter air that must find its way upward, to
give place for the cooler air that must find its way down.
Tappan heard the first, low, distant moan of wind and it struck terror
to his heart. It did not have an earthly sound. Was that a knell for
him? Nothing was surer than the fact that the desert must sooner or
later claim him as a victim. Grim and strong, he rebelled against the
conviction.
That moan was a forerunner of others, growing louder and longer until
the weird sound became continuous. Then the movement of wind was
accelerated and began to carry a fine dust. Dark as the night was, it
did not hide the pale sheets of dust that moved along the level plain.
Tappan’s feet felt the slow rise in the floor of the valley. His nose
recognized the zone of borax and alkali and niter and sulphur. He had
reached the pit of the valley at the time of the furnace winds.
The moan augmented to a roar, coming like a mighty storm through a
forest. It was hellish--like the woeful tide of Acheron. It enveloped
Tappan. And the gale bore down in tremendous volume, like a furnace
blast. Tappan seemed to feel his body penetrated by a million needles
of fire. He seemed to dry up. The blackness of night had a spectral,
whitish cast; the gloom was a whirling medium; the valley floor was
lost in a sheeted, fiercely seeping stream of silt. Deadly fumes swept
by, not lingering long enough to suffocate Tappan. He would gasp and
choke--then the poison gas was gone on the gale. But hardest to endure
was the heavy body of moving heat. Tappan grew blind, so that he had to
hold to Jenet, and stumble along. Every gasping breath was a tortured
effort. He could not bear a scarf over his face. His lungs heaved like
great leather bellows. His heart pumped like an engine short of fuel.
This was the supreme test for his never proven endurance. And he was
all but vanquished.
Tappan’s senses of sight and smell and hearing failed him. There
was left only the sense of touch--a feeling of rope and burro and
ground--and an awful insulating pressure upon all his body. His feet
marked a change from salty plain to sandy ascent and then to rocky
slope. The pressure of wind gradually lessened: the difference in air
made life possible; the feeling of being dragged endlessly by Jenet had
ceased. Tappan went his limit and fell into oblivion.
When he came to, he was suffering bodily tortures. Sight was dim. But
he saw walls of rocks, green growths of mesquite, tamarack, and grass.
Jenet was lying down, with her pack flopped to one side. Tappan’s dead
ears recovered to a strange murmuring, babbling sound. Then he realized
his deliverance. Jenet had led him across Death Valley, up into the
mountain range, straight to a spring of running water.
Tappan crawled to the edge of the water and drank guardedly, a little
at a time. He had to quell terrific craving to drink his fill. Then he
crawled to Jenet, and loosening the ropes of her pack, freed her from
its burden. Jenet got up, apparently none the worse for her ordeal.
She gazed mildly at Tappan, as if to say: “Well, I got you out of that
hole.”
Tappan returned her gaze. Were they only man and beast, alone in the
desert? She seemed magnified to Tappan, no longer a plodding, stupid
burro.
[Illustration: THIS WAS THE SUPREME TEST FOR HIS NEVER-PROVEN
ENDURANCE, AND HE WAS ALL BUT VANQUISHED]
“Jenet, you--saved--my life,” Tappan tried to enunciate. “I’ll
never--forget.”
Tappan was struck then to a realization of Jenet’s service. He was
unutterably grateful. Yet the time came when he did forget.
II
Tappan had a weakness common to all prospectors: Any tale of a lost
gold mine would excite his interest; and well-known legends of lost
mines always obsessed him.
Peg-leg Smith’s lost gold mine had lured Tappan to no less than half
a dozen trips into the terrible shifting-sand country of southern
California. There was no water near the region said to hide this mine
of fabulous wealth. Many prospectors had left their bones to bleach
white in the sun, finally to be buried by the ever blowing sands. Upon
the occasion of Tappan’s last escape from this desolate and forbidding
desert, he had promised Jenet never to undertake it again. It seemed
Tappan promised the faithful burro a good many things. It had been a
habit.
When Tappan had a particularly hard experience or perilous adventure,
he always took a dislike to the immediate country where it had befallen
him. Jenet had dragged him across Death Valley, through incredible
heat and the midnight furnace winds of that strange place; and he
had promised her he would never forget how she had saved his life.
Nor would he ever go back to Death Valley! He made his way over the
Funeral Mountains, worked down through Nevada, and crossed the Rio
Colorado above Needles, and entered Arizona. He traveled leisurely,
but he kept going, and headed southeast towards Globe. There he cashed
one of his six bags of gold, and indulged in the luxury of a complete
new outfit. Even Jenet appreciated this fact, for the old outfit would
scarcely hold together.
Tappan had the other five bags of gold in his pack; and after hours
of hesitation he decided he would not cash them and entrust the money
to a bank. He would take care of them. For him the value of this gold
amounted to a small fortune. Many plans suggested themselves to Tappan.
But in the end he grew weary of them. What did he want with a ranch, or
cattle, or an outfitting store, or any of the businesses he now had the
means to buy? Towns soon palled on Tappan. People did not long please
him. Selfish interest and greed seemed paramount everywhere. Besides,
if he acquired a place to take up his time, what would become of Jenet?
That question decided him. He packed the burro and once more took to
the trails.
A dim, lofty, purple range called alluringly to Tappan. The
Superstition Mountains! Somewhere in that purple mass hid the famous
treasure called the Lost Dutchman gold mine. Tappan had heard the story
often. A Dutch prospector struck gold in the Superstitions. He kept
the location secret. When he ran short of money, he would disappear
for a few weeks, and then return with bags of gold. Wherever his
strike, it assuredly was a rich one. No one ever could trail him or get
a word out of him. Time passed. A few years made him old. During this
time he conceived a liking for a young man, and eventually confided
to him that some day he would tell him the secret of his gold mine.
He had drawn a map of the landmarks adjacent to his mine. But he was
careful not to put on paper directions how to get there. It chanced
that he suddenly fell ill and saw his end was near. Then he summoned
the young man who had been so fortunate as to win his regard. Now this
individual was a ne’er-do-well, and upon this occasion he was half
drunk. The dying Dutchman produced his map, and gave it with verbal
directions to the young man. Then he died. When the recipient of this
fortune recovered from the effects of liquor, he could not remember all
the Dutchman had told him. He tortured himself to remember names and
places. But the mine was up in the Superstition Mountains. He never
remembered. He never found the lost mine, though he spent his life and
died trying. Thus the story passed into the legend of the Lost Dutchman.
Tappan now had his try at finding it. But for him the shifting sands of
the southern California desert or even the barren and desolate Death
Valley were preferable to this Superstition Range. It was a harder
country than the Pinacate of Sonora. Tappan hated cactus, and the
Superstitions were full of it. Everywhere stood up the huge _sahuaro_,
the giant cacti of the Arizona plateaus, tall like branchless trees,
fluted and columnar, beautiful and fascinating to gaze upon, but
obnoxious to prospector and burro.
One day from a north slope Tappan saw afar a wonderful country of
black timber, above which zigzagged for many miles a yellow, winding
rampart of rock. This he took to be the rim of the Mogollon Mesa, one
of Arizona’s freaks of nature. Something called Tappan. He was forever
victim to yearnings for the unattainable. He was tired of heat, glare,
dust, bare rock, and thorny cactus. The Lost Dutchman gold mine was a
myth. Besides, he did not need any more gold.
Next morning Tappan packed Jenet and worked down off the north slopes
of the Superstition Range. That night about sunset he made camp on the
bank of a clear brook, with grass and wood in abundance--such a camp
site as a prospector dreamed of but seldom found.
Before dark Jenet’s long ears told of the advent of strangers. A man
and a woman rode down the trail into Tappan’s camp. They had poor
horses, and led a pack animal that appeared too old and weak to bear
up under even the meager pack he carried.
“Howdy,” said the man.
Tappan rose from his task to his lofty height and returned the
greeting. The man was middle-aged, swarthy, and rugged, a mountaineer,
with something about him that Tappan instinctively distrusted. The
woman was under thirty, comely in a full-blown way, with rich brown
skin and glossy dark hair. She had wide-open black eyes that bent a
curious possession-taking gaze upon Tappan.
“Care if we camp with you?” she inquired, and she smiled.
That smile changed Tappan’s habit and conviction of a lifetime.
“No indeed. Reckon I’d like a little company,” he said.
Very probably Jenet did not understand Tappan’s words, but she dropped
one ear, and walked out of camp to the green bank.
“Thanks, stranger,” replied the woman. “That grub shore smells good.”
She hesitated a moment, evidently waiting to catch her companion’s eye,
then she continued. “My name’s Madge Beam. He’s my brother Jake.... Who
might you happen to be?”
“I’m Tappan, lone prospector, as you see,” replied Tappan.
“Tappan! What’s your front handle?” she queried, curiously.
“Fact is, I don’t remember,” replied Tappan, as he brushed a huge hand
through his shaggy hair.
“Ahuh? Any name’s good enough.”
When she dismounted, Tappan saw that she had a tall, lithe figure,
garbed in rider’s overalls and boots. She unsaddled her horse with the
dexterity of long practice. The saddlebags she carried over to the spot
the man Jake had selected to throw the pack.
Tappan heard them talking in low tones. It struck him as strange that
he did not have his usual reaction to an invasion of his privacy and
solitude. Tappan had thrilled under those black eyes. And now a queer
sensation of the unusual rose in him. Bending over his camp-fire tasks
he pondered this and that, but mostly the sense of the nearness of a
woman. Like most desert men, Tappan knew little of the other sex. A
few that he might have been drawn to went out of his wandering life
as quickly as they had entered it. This Madge Beam took possession of
his thoughts. An evidence of Tappan’s preoccupation was the fact that
he burned his first batch of biscuits. And Tappan felt proud of his
culinary ability. He was on his knees, mixing more flour and water,
when the woman spoke from right behind him.
“Tough luck you burned the first pan,” she said. “But it’s a good turn
for your burro. That shore is a burro. Biggest I ever saw.”
She picked up the burned biscuits and tossed them over to Jenet. Then
she came back to Tappan’s side, rather embarrassingly close.
“Tappan, I know how I’ll eat, so I ought to ask you to let me help,”
she said, with a laugh.
“No, I don’t need any,” replied Tappan. “You sit down on my roll of
beddin’ there. Must be tired, aren’t you?”
“Not so very,” she returned. “That is, I’m not tired of ridin’.” She
spoke the second part of this reply in lower tone.
Tappan looked up from his task. The woman had washed her face, brushed
her hair, and had put on a skirt--a singularly attractive change.
Tappan thought her younger. She was the handsomest woman he had ever
seen. The look of her made him clumsy. What eyes she had! They looked
through him. Tappan returned to his task, wondering if he was right in
his surmise that she wanted to be friendly.
“Jake an’ I drove a bunch of cattle to Maricopa,” she volunteered. “We
sold ’em, an’ Jake gambled away most of the money. I couldn’t get what
I wanted.”
“Too bad! So you’re ranchers. Once thought I’d like that. Fact is, down
here at Globe a few weeks ago I came near buyin’ some rancher out an’
tryin’ the game.”
“You did?” Her query had a low, quick eagerness that somehow thrilled
Tappan. But he did not look up.
“I’m a wanderer. I’d never do on a ranch.”
“But if you had a woman?” Her laugh was subtle and gay.
“A woman! For me? Oh, Lord, no!” ejaculated Tappan, in confusion.
“Why not? Are you a woman hater?”
“I can’t say that,” replied Tappan, soberly. “It’s just--I guess--no
woman would have me.”
“Faint heart never won fair lady.”
Tappan had no reply for that. He surely was making a mess of the
second pan of biscuit dough. Manifestly the woman saw this, for with a
laugh she plumped down on her knees in front of Tappan, and rolled her
sleeves up over shapely brown arms.
“Poor man! Shore you need a woman. Let me show you,” she said, and
put her hands right down upon Tappan’s. The touch gave him a strange
thrill. He had to pull his hands away, and as he wiped them with his
scarf he looked at her. He seemed compelled to look. She was close
to him now, smiling in good nature, a little scornful of man’s
encroachment upon the housewifely duties of a woman. A subtle something
emanated from her--a more than kindness or gayety. Tappan grasped that
it was just the woman of her. And it was going to his head.
“Very well, let’s see you show me,” he replied, as he rose to his feet.
Just then the brother Jake strolled over, and he had a rather amused
and derisive eye for his sister.
“Wal, Tappan, she’s not overfond of work, but I reckon she can cook,”
he said.
Tappan felt greatly relieved at the approach of this brother. And he
fell into conversation with him, telling something of his prospecting
since leaving Globe, and listening to the man’s cattle talk. By and by
the woman called, “Come an’ get it!” Then they sat down to eat, and, as
usual with hungry wayfarers, they did not talk much until appetite was
satisfied. Afterward, before the camp fire, they began to talk again,
Jake being the most discursive. Tappan conceived the idea that the
rancher was rather curious about him, and perhaps wanted to sell his
ranch. The woman seemed more thoughtful, with her wide black eyes on
the fire.
“Tappan, what way you travelin’?” finally inquired Beam.
“Can’t say. I just worked down out of the Superstitions. Haven’t any
place in mind. Where does this road go?”
“To the Tonto Basin. Ever heard of it?”
“Yes, the name isn’t new. What’s in this Basin?”
The man grunted. “Tonto once was home for the Apache. It’s now got a
few sheep an’ cattlemen, lots of rustlers. An’ say, if you like to hunt
bear an’ deer, come along with us.”
“Thanks. I don’t know as I can,” returned Tappan, irresolutely. He was
not used to such possibilities as this suggested.
Then the woman spoke up. “It’s a pretty country. Wild an’ different. We
live up under the rim rock. There’s mineral in the canyons.”
Was it that about mineral which decided Tappan or the look in her eyes?
* * * * *
Tappan’s world of thought and feeling underwent as great a change as
this Tonto Basin differed from the stark desert so long his home. The
trail to the log cabin of the Beams climbed many a ridge and slope and
foothill, all covered with manzanita, mescal, cedar, and juniper, at
last to reach the canyons of the Rim, where lofty pines and spruces
lorded it over the under forest of maples and oaks. Though the yellow
Rim towered high over the site of the cabin, the altitude was still
great, close to seven thousand feet above sea level.
Tappan had fallen in love with this wild wooded and canyoned country.
So had Jenet. It was rather funny the way she hung around Tappan,
mornings and evenings. She ate luxuriant grass and oak leaves until her
sides bulged.
There did not appear to be any flat places in this landscape. Every
bench was either up hill or down hill. The Beams had no garden or farm
or ranch that Tappan could discover. They raised a few acres of sorghum
and corn. Their log cabin was of the most primitive kind, and outfitted
poorly. Madge Beam explained that this cabin was their winter abode,
and that up on the Rim they had a good house and ranch. Tappan did
not inquire closely into anything. If he had interrogated himself, he
would have found out that the reason he did not inquire was because
he feared something might remove him from the vicinity of Madge Beam.
He had thought it strange the Beams avoided wayfarers they had met on
the trail, and had gone round a little hamlet Tappan had espied from a
hill. Madge Beam, with woman’s intuition, had read his mind, and had
said: “Jake doesn’t get along so well with some of the villagers. An’
I’ve no hankerin’ for gun play.” That explanation was sufficient for
Tappan. He had lived long enough in his wandering years to appreciate
that people could have reasons for being solitary.
This trip up into the Rim Rock country bade fair to become Tappan’s
one and only adventure of the heart. It was not alone the murmuring,
clear brook of cold mountain water that enchanted him, nor the stately
pines, nor the beautiful silver spruces, nor the wonder of the deep,
yellow-walled canyons, so choked with verdure, and haunted by wild
creatures. He dared not face his soul, and ask why this dark-eyed woman
sought him more and more. Tappan lived in the moment.
He was aware that the few mountaineer neighbors who rode that way
rather avoided contact with him. Tappan was not so dense that he did
not perceive that the Beams preferred to keep him from outsiders. This
perhaps was owing to their desire to sell Tappan the ranch and cattle.
Jake offered to let it go at what he called a low figure. Tappan
thought it just as well to go out into the forest and hide his bags of
gold. He did not trust Jake Beam, and liked less the looks of the men
who visited this wilderness ranch. Madge Beam might be related to a
rustler, and the associate of rustlers, but that did not necessarily
make her a bad woman. Tappan sensed that her attitude was changing,
and she seemed to require his respect. At first, all she wanted was
his admiration. Tappan’s long unused deference for women returned to
him, and when he saw that it was having some strange softening effect
upon Madge Beam, he redoubled his attentions. They rode and climbed and
hunted together. Tappan had pitched his camp not far from the cabin,
on a shaded bank of the singing brook. Madge did not leave him much
to himself. She was always coming up to his camp, on one pretext or
another. Often she would bring two horses, and make Tappan ride with
her. Some of these occasions, Tappan saw, occurred while visitors
came to the cabin. In three weeks Madge Beam changed from the bold
and careless woman who had ridden down into his camp that sunset, to
a serious and appealing woman, growing more careful of her person and
adornment, and manifestly bearing a burden on her mind.
October came. In the morning white frost glistened on the split-wood
shingles of the cabin. The sun soon melted it, and grew warm. The
afternoons were still and smoky, melancholy with the enchantment of
Indian summer. Tappan hunted wild turkey and deer with Madge, and
revived his boyish love of such pursuits. Madge appeared to be a woman
of the woods, and had no mean skill with the rifle.
One day they were high on the Rim, with the great timbered basin at
their feet. They had come up to hunt deer, but got no farther than the
wonderful promontory where before they had lingered.
“Somethin’ will happen to me to-day,” Madge Beam said, enigmatically.
Tappan never had been much of a talker. But he could listen. The woman
unburdened herself this day. She wanted freedom, happiness, a home away
from this lonely country, and all the heritage of woman. She confessed
it broodingly, passionately. And Tappan recognized truth when he heard
it. He was ready to do all in his power for this woman and believed she
knew it. But words and acts of sentiment came hard to him.
“Are you goin’ to buy Jake’s ranch?” she asked.
“I don’t know. Is there any hurry?” returned Tappan.
“I reckon not. But I think I’ll settle that,” she said, decisively.
“How so?”
“Well, Jake hasn’t got any ranch,” she answered. And added hastily, “No
clear title, I mean. He’s only homesteaded one hundred an’ sixty acres,
an’ hasn’t proved up on it yet. But don’t you say I told you.”
“Was Jake aimin’ to be crooked?”
“I reckon.... An’ I was willin’ at first. But not now.”