Half an hour later the girls saw Annette’s brother returning,
leading the faithful old pack animal who had evidently forgotten his
former fear and was plodding along with his usual lack of interest
in all about him, until, as they neared the mountains a breeze
evidently carried the scent of the creature he so feared.
However the lad had been expecting this very thing to happen and he
was on the watch. At the first movement of Old Stoic, Gordon had
whirled in his saddle and was holding firmly to the rope by which he
was leading the pack animal.
But try as he might to persuade, to assure, to command, the stolid
creature would not move. He did not attempt to run away but having
planted all four feet squarely in the sand, mule fashion, there he
stood and would not budge.
Laughingly Virginia leaped to her horse’s back, and galloped out to
lend what assistance she might.
She patted Old Stoic, assured him that it was only a tame bear and
was not in any way a creature to be feared, but the stubborn animal
blinked and winked his expressionless eyes and just stood.
“I’ll tell you what,” Virg suggested. “Let’s lead him away from your
camp. There’s a trail up to the Wallace cabin from beyond that
jutting out rock. It’s about an eighth of a mile from here and as
the wind is not blowing in that direction, I believe Old Stoic will
soon again forget the near presence of a bear.” This was done. The
small horse began to walk when Gordon pulled him in another
direction. When the watching girl observed that the pack animal was
willing to be led to the point she had indicated, she said that she
would ride back to the covered wagon and tell the girls to accompany
her. Although Gordon had recently visited the cabin in the canon in
search of water, he had seen no one but the boy Peter who had
gloomily told him that they didn’t have any to spare.
The lad having always had a secret desire to be an inventor, and
having, in fact, won the admiration of his boy friends by fashioning
all kinds of mechanical devices for toys in his own shop, was very
eager to see the man who had a vision which he could not fulfill.
“May Annette and I go with you?” he asked eagerly.
“Why, of course, you may. We’ll be glad to have you. You will like
poor Mr. Wallace. He is very lovable in spite of his queerness.”
Meanwhile Betsy having been permitted to peep at the tame bear
(which to her thought had growled at her in a manner most untame)
was glad indeed when Virg rode up and told them all to accompany
her. Single file they rode up the narrow rugged trail, Virg in the
lead and Gordon last that he might still hold the guiding rope
attached to Old Stoic not knowing at what minute the wind might
change and startle the pack animal into flight.
As they neared the shack-like cabin, half hidden by overhanging
boulders, Virg gave a call with which she always heralded her
approach. Instantly three children ran pell mell to the top of the
trail, their homely freckled faces shining with their joy at seeing
the good angel friend whom they had so missed.
Little Jane, aged six, hopped up and down so fast (clapping her
hands all the time) that her two braids bobbed merrily.
Thoughtful eyed Sara, who was so like her faithful mother, smiled
too, but made no move of welcome although her heart was just as
glad. Twelve year old Peter raced to meet them down the trail and
catching Virginia’s bridle, he looked up with adoration in his
red-brown eyes. “Oh, Miss Virgie,” he cried, “Ma’s been that eager
to have you come home from the East. Often I’ve heard her say,
‘Somehow things will be better when Miss Virginia comes’.”
There were sudden tears in the eyes of the girl, and reaching down
she put her hand over the small brown one on her horse’s head.
“I’m glad to get home, Peter. How are your mother and dad?”
There was a shade of anxiety on the boy’s freckled face. “Pa’s been
took queer this very day,” he said looking up toward the cabin as
though he feared he might be overheard, “and Ma says now with the
water most gone, she just doesn’t know what we are to do. There
weren’t any late rains and the cistern’s most empty.”
“Dear boy, your mother must not worry about that. There’s plenty of
water at V. M. and you are welcome to all you can carry.” But the
girl’s heart was heavy for even as she made the offer, she knew that
there would be no convenient way of packing water so many miles
across the desert.
Having dismounted on the small flat space which served as a
dooryard, the others turned anxiously to Virg. “Ought we to remain,”
Annette Traylor inquired. “If the Wallaces have this new trouble, we
might be intruding.”
But Gordon stepped forward and said earnestly, “Miss Virginia, I
would like to meet Mr. Wallace. I believe that I can be of service
to him.”
Mrs. Wallace, more pale and fragile than when Virg had gone east to
school, appeared in the doorway and Virginia went forward to greet
her. The girls saw her bend and kiss the sunken cheek and were
touched at the light of tenderness in the face of the older woman.
It was evident that the girl was inquiring about poor Mr. Wallace.
“I don’t know what has happened exactly. Something that discouraged
him so much that he just gave up and ever since he’s sat there in
his chair around on the north side of the cabin and staring into
space, though once in a while he does say something, but it’s about
his instrument and I don’t understand.”
Meanwhile Gordon had seen the listless figure of the man, and, with
an earnest desire to be of service, he had walked toward him.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Wallace,” the boy said, hoping to attract the
attention of the inventor, but the dreamy grey-blue eyes of the
thin, kindly-faced man did not move from what seemed to be one
definite spot farther up the canon.
The boy, noting that the girls had gone in the cabin with the
mother, sat on a rock near to wait until a more opportune moment to
again address the man who seemed deep in thought.
At last, in a voice that seemed infinitely sad, the inventor spoke.
“I’ve failed! I was so sure it could be done, but now, I know the
truth. I’ve failed!”
“In what way have you failed, Mr. Wallace?” Again hopefully the boy
ventured a remark.
This time the dreamy grey-blue eyes turned toward him. “I was sure
there was a hidden spring up there,” he said more to himself than to
a listener. “But the instrument doesn’t show water and I won’t
dynamite until it does.”
Gordon, more interested than he thought wise to show, asked, “Mr.
Wallace, may I see your instrument?”
The older man nodded and pointed toward a long narrow wooden box on
the ground near.
Reverentially the lad knelt and lifted the cover. There lay an
instrument of delicate mechanism. At the sight of it, the inventor’s
eyes burned and leaning forward he said, Gordon thought almost
angrily, “Give it to me! I’ll break it into a thousand pieces. I’ve
given my life’s blood to try to perfect it, I’ve caused untold
suffering to my wife and children, but, God knows, I meant no harm.
I had faith in it. I dreamed that a fortune would be theirs,
everything, everything, schooling for the kiddies, Peter was to go
to Yale where I went.”
Gordon was on his feet at once, and, grasping the thin hand of the
man, he cried in boyish glee, “I say, Mr. Wallace, I’m bully glad
that you went to Yale. And don’t you worry. It’s always darkest
before the dawn, you know that. Peter’ll make college. Everything
will turn out all right. You see if it doesn’t. Don’t give up. Keep
your faith.”
The dreamy eyes had turned toward the boy when he began this
enthusiastic outburst, and in them there gradually dawned a light of
understanding.
“Who are you?” the man inquired as one awakening from a sleep. “I
haven’t seen you before, have I?”
“No, Mr. Wallace. I’m just passing this way, but I’m ever so
interested in your invention. Won’t you come up to the spot where
you are sure there is water, or ought to be, and show me how it
works.”
There was a sudden renewed eagerness in the eyes of the poor man who
had been so scoffed and laughed at. “Why, would you really like to
see it work?” he asked as though hardly able to believe his ears.
“Wouldn’t I though,” the lad had hold of the man’s hand and was
firmly lifting him to his feet. Then he added confidentially, “I’m
something of an inventor myself in a small way. I say, Mr. Wallace,
I’ll bet you have a good thing there. May be it needs a little
different adjusting. Let’s try it out.”
It was pitiful to see the joy in the dim eyes of the man who had
failed. Here was someone, what if only a boy, someone who had faith
in him. With shaking hands he lifted the instrument he had a moment
before threatened to break into a thousand pieces, and with an
eagerness he had never again expected to feel, he led the way up, up
the canon with a sureness of step that amazed the lad who had such a
brief time before pitied his weakness.
“Are you good for a stiff climb?” the man turned to call. “There’s a
wall of rock ahead that’s as perpendicular as a barn door, but
there’s no way but to go up over it to reach the spot which I am
sure long years ago was the source of a water way. See! See!” he
cried excitedly. “Now, you know why I am so sure there has been
water here.”
The lad, looking ahead at the huge boulder, saw on its surface a
smooth, many-colored groove which could only have been made by
running water. “It wasn’t much of a volume, I’ll agree, but there
_was_ water, but where is it now?” Then again inquiringly, “Do you
think you can climb it?”
“Certainly, sir, if you can,” the boy replied, amazed though that
the man so recently weak, could even think of making the attempt.
“Well, then, follow me closely. I’ve been up so many times, I know
just where the indentures in the rock will serve for steps.”
The lad inwardly confessed that it was an almost impossible feat,
but if one Yale man could accomplish it, he assured himself, then so
too could another.
At length they stood above the boulder and saw that the canon had
narrowed until the rocks overhanging on one side often touched the
opposite wall.
“There’s a hidden spring, I am convinced, somewhere about here,” the
man’s eyes were no longer dreamy but shining with the light of
rekindled faith.
“I believe you are right, Mr. Wallace.” The lad leaped to a spot
where he saw another of the smoothed grooves in the rocks. “Let’s
try it here,” he suggested. The instrument was set up, and Mr.
Wallace explained that if there were water, it was his hope that the
sensitized swinging needle would dip and point toward it, but it
made no movement at all.
The lad on his knees was watching it intently. Looking up he saw the
old expression of despair returning to the ashen face of the man.
That would never do. Hope _must_ be kept alive.
“I say, Mr. Wallace, don’t you think maybe that needle’s held too
tight? Have you ever tried loosening that minute screw there? Gee,
but I’d jolly like to try that experiment.”
Almost mechanically the inventor put his hand in a large leather
pocket and drew out an infinitesimally small screw driver. “Do what
you wish,” he said as he sat upon a flat rock and leaned his head on
his hands. “I’ve failed. Not that I have any reason to be sure that
there _is_ water here, but it did not move over at Slaters and there
_was_ water.”
While the man talked, the boy, with heart beating like a
trip-hammer, was actually praying for inspiration while he loosened
ever so little the tiny screw that held the sensitive needle. But
even then, it did not stir.
“I say, Mr. Wallace, may I take it higher up? Way to the very top of
the canon?”
The older man shook his head. “No use, son. There aren’t any
watermarks farther up and it’s almost impassible.”
“But, may I try?”
A silent, resigned nod was the only answer and so securing the
instrument, the lad carefully climbed over boulders, higher and
higher. At last he stopped. Mr. Wallace had spoken truly, there were
no signs of the water marks that had been made, no one knew how many
years before. Retracing his steps, he turned a little to the right.
Something seemed to impell him to stoop and look into a fissure
where a boulder, perhaps ages before, had been rent asunder by some
tremendous power, an earth-quake, without doubt.
It was an almost impossible feat to hold himself so that he could
thrust the instrument into the fissure, but he did it, and with a
startling suddenness, the sensitive needle dipped straight down.
“Mr. Wallace! Mr. Wallace! Come quick! I’ve found the spring.”
The boy’s triumphant cry rang out, reverberating down the canon and
penetrating even the again dulled senses of the inventor. Not for
one moment did the boy doubt that the needle was telling the truth.
Unable to wait for the older man to climb to him, Gordon fairly
leaped down from rock to rock, though he wondered afterwards at the
sureness with which he had stepped, and catching the man’s hand, he
dragged him up, up until the fissure was seen in a perilous place
beyond and below.
“Why son, you couldn’t get down there. No one could,” the man said.
“But I did! See! I just chanced to find the way. I guess my guardian
angel showed it to me. The instrument’s in that fissure and the
needle dipped. Mr. Wallace, it dipped straight down. Oh, if only we
had some dynamite.”
The boy’s faith was just the spur the older man needed. “There’s
dynamite in a cavern just below here,” he said. “Wait, we’ll bring a
stick and shoot it off.”
The boy secured the instrument and took it to a place of safety.
“We’ll have to make a long fuse,” the man told the lad. “We don’t
want to take any chances with flying rock.” Then he looked at the
sun. “We ought to get back to the cabin in half an hour. I’ll time
it for about then.”
This was done and then the two scrambled back down the rocks. How
Gordon hoped the fire of the fuse would not be extinguished. Too, he
hoped the explosion would not take place before they reached the
girls lest they should be too greatly frightened.
* * * * *
During the absence of the man and boy, Virginia glanced often at her
watch. She did want to see Gordon before she left to thank him for
having procured her pack animal and to urge him to bring his sister
to V. M. before returning to Douglas. She was sure that Malcolm
would wish her to do so. But the afternoon was wearing away and, as
they did not return, the girl at last arose saying: “I fear that we
cannot wait longer.” Then to the little mother, whose expression was
much happier than when the visitors had arrived, she said, “Tell Mr.
Wallace how sorry I am, not to have seen him this time, but I shall
come again and often, and do remember, dear Mrs. Wallace, the V. M.
Ranch house is large and if you run out of water in a few days, as
you fear, I want you all to come to us until your cistern can be
refilled.”
There were tears of gratitude in the eyes of the frail woman. “I
don’t understand why it is,” she said, “but now that you are here,
Miss Virgie, I feel confident that all will be well, somehow.”
They were out in the plateau-like dooryard and each girl had a horse
by the bridle which was lucky when a deafening report like thunder
boomed through the mountains.
“W-what was that?” Betsy cried in alarm, but Mrs. Wallace at once
quieted their fears, for it was a sound she had often heard. “It’s
my Peter dynamiting for water,” she said sadly. “But he won’t find
it. He never has.” But little Peter whose eyes had been afire with
enthusiasm had raced toward the canon bed and was seen waving and
beckoning frantically. “Ma,” he shouted, “I hear it. I’m as sure as
anything that I hear water.”
The girls listened and far up in the canon they heard a rushing
sound that came nearer and nearer, then they heard something else. A
shout of triumph, then a man and boy appeared and in the face of the
inventor was light, an inner radiance of great joy.
He seemed to see no one but the wife he loved. Going straight toward
her, with arms outstretched, he cried, “Molly, Molly, little girl!
We’ve succeeded at last, you and I! Thank God your days of privation
are over.” Then turning to the lad he said, “But I can’t call it all
my invention. It was your thought that perfected it. I’ll share with
you.” But the boy exclaimed, “Mr. Wallace, you alone are the
inventor of that instrument. It would have been only a matter of
time before you thought to make the slight change that I suggested.”
Then, although it seemed as though they just must stay to rejoice
with their friends, Virginia was reminded by the lowness of the sun
that she must start on the homeward way.
Annette and Gordon decided to remain in their present camp until the
morrow. Then, although they would like nothing better than to visit
V. M., the lad decided that he did not care to chance being stuck
again in the sand and so he accepted Virginia’s advice that he start
out for Slater’s Ranch early the next day.
“Mr. Slater is the richest man on the desert. You will have no
trouble reaching his place,” the girl assured him, “and from there
into town is one of the best roads anywhere to be found as he keeps
it up himself, or rather he has the peons in his employ constantly
working on it.” Then, holding out her hand to Annette, Virg said,
“If your father is not ready to return East, we shall be glad to
have you and Gordon visit us. If you will send us word, we will come
for you in our car.”
Two hours later, when the girls were dismounting near the corral at
V. M., Betsy said, “Well, wasn’t that all just like a story book
adventure?” Then going to the pack horse, she patted him as she
laughingly said, “And, although he doesn’t know it, Old Stoic was
the hero.”