The Mal-Pais
Billie Prince laughed. The joke was on him, but he was glad of it. As
sheriff of Washington County it had been his duty to accept any aid that
might come from the treachery of Sanders; but as a friend of Jim Clanton
he did not want to win over him by using such weapons.
"Tickled to death, ain't you?" snapped the ex-foreman sourly. "Looks to
me like you didn't want to make this arrest, Mr. Sheriff. Looks to me
like some one else has been doin' some double-crossin' besides me."
"Naturally _you'd_ think that," cut in Goodheart dryly. "The facts
probably are that Go-Get-'Em Jim, knowin' his friends pretty well, had
you watched, found out you called on the sheriff, an' guessed the rest.
He's not a fool, you know."
"That's right. Git ready an alibi," Sanders snarled.
Casually Goodheart picked up the piece of wrapping-paper upon which the
note had been written. He read aloud the last sentence.
"'Crack Sanders one on the bean with your six-gun on account for me.'
Seems to me if I was you, Buck, I'd alibi myself down the river into
Texas as quick as I could jog a bronco along. But, of course, I don't
know yore friend Go-Get-'Em as well as you do. Mebbe you'll be able to
explain it to him. Tell him you were hard up an' needed the money."
The eyes of the rustler flashed from Goodheart to the sheriff. They were
full of sinister suspicion. Had these men arranged to deliver him into
the hands of Clanton? Was he himself going to fall into the pit he had
dug?
"Gimme back my gun an' I'm not afraid of him or any of you," he bluffed.
"You'll get yore gun when we reach Los Portales," Prince told him. "I
left it in my office."
"I ain't goin' to Los Portales."
"All right. Leave yore address and I'll send the gun by the buckboard
driver."
All the baffled hate and cupidity of Sanders glared out of his wolfish
face. "I'll let you know later where I'm at."
He straddled out of the house, pulled himself astride the waiting horse,
and rode up the hill. Presently he disappeared over the crest.
"Much obliged, Jack," said Prince, smiling. "Exit Mr. Buck Sanders from
New Mexico. Our loss is Texas's gain. Chalk up one bad man emigrated
from Washington County."
"He's sure goin' to take my advice," agreed the lank deputy. A little
chuckle of amusement escaped from his throat. "To the day of his death
he'll think we sent word to Go-Get-'Em Jim. I'll bet my next pay-check
against a dollar Mex that he forgets to send you that address."
Billie availed himself of the invitation of Clanton to make himself at
home. He and his posse spent the night in the dug-out and returned to Los
Portales next day. For the better part of a week he was detained there on
business, after which he took the stage to Live-Oaks.
News was waiting for Prince at the county seat that led him for a time to
forget the existence of Clanton. The buckboard driver from El Paso
reported the worst sand-storm he had ever encountered. It had struck him
a mile or two this side of the Mal-Pais, as the great lava beds in the
Tularosa Basin are commonly called. He had unhitched the horses,
overturned the buckboard, and huddled in the shelter of the bed. There he
had lain crouched for ten hours while the drifting sand, fine as powder,
blotted out the world and buried him in drifts. He was an old plainsman,
tough as leather, and he had weathered the storm safely. A full day late
he staggered into Live-Oaks a sorry sight.
The news that shook Live-Oaks into swift activity had to do with Lee
Snaith. Just before the storm hit him the buckboard driver had met her
riding toward the Mal-Pais.
Prince arrived to find the town upside down with the confusion of
preparation. Swiftly he brought order out of the turmoil. He organized
the rescue party, assigned leaders to the divisions, saw that each man
was properly outfitted, and mapped off the territory to be covered by
each posse. Outwardly he was cool, efficient, full of hopeful energy. But
at his heart Billie felt an icy clutch of despair. What chance was there
for Lee, caught unsheltered in the open, when the wiry, old Indian
fighter, protected by his wagon, had barely won through alive?
Every horse in Live-Oaks that could be ridden was in the group that
melted into the night to find Lee Snaith. Every living soul left in the
little town was on the street to cheer the rescuers.
The sheriff divided his men. Most of them were to spend the night, and if
necessary the next day and night, in combing the sand desert east of the
Mal-Pais. Here Lee had last been seen, and here probably she had wandered
round and round until the storm had beaten her down. It took little
imagination to vision the girl, flailed by the sweeping sand, bewildered
by it, choked at every gasping breath, hopelessly lost in the tempest.
Yet some bell of hope rang in Billie's breast. She might have reached the
lava. If so, there was a chance that she might be alive. For though the
wind had sweep enough here, the fine dust-sand of the alluvial plain
could not be carried so densely into this rock-sea. Perhaps she had
slipped into a fissure and found safety.
For fifty miles this great igneous bed stretches, a rough and broken sea
of stone, across the thirsty desert. Its texture is like that of slag
from a furnace. Once, in the morning of the world, it flowed from the
crater along the line of least resistance, a vitreous river of fire. In a
great molten mass it swept into the valleys, crawling like a great snake
here and there, pushing fiery tongues into every crevice of the hills.
The margin of its flow is a cliff or steep slope varying in height from a
few feet to that of a good-sized tree. Between the silt plain and the
general level of its bed rises a terrace. In front of it Prince stopped
and distributed the men he had reserved to search the lava bed. He gave
definite, peremptory orders.
"We'll keep about two hundred yards apart. Every twenty minutes each of
you will fire his revolver. If any of you find Miss Snaith or any
evidence of her, shoot three times in rapid succession. Each of you pass
the signal down the line by firing four shots. Those who hear the three
shots go in as fast as you can to the rescue. The others--those farther
away, who hear the four shots only--will turn an' work back to the plain,
continuing to fire once every twenty minutes. Do exactly as I tell you,
boys. If you don't, some one will be lost an' may never get out alive. If
any one of you gets out of touch with the rest of us, stay right where
you are till mornin', then come out by the sun."
The horses were left in charge of a Mexican boy. The surface of the
deposit is so broken that even a man on foot has difficulty in traversing
it. Prince crawled forward from the terrace up the rough slope of the
cliff which at this point bounded it. At the top of the rim he rose and
came face to face with another man.
"A good deal like frozen hell, Billie," the other said casually.
"Where did you come from?" demanded the sheriff, amazed.
Jim Clanton laughed grimly. "I've been with yore party half an hour. Why
shouldn't I be here when Lee Snaith is lost?"
"You were hiding in Live-Oaks?"
"Mebbeso. Anyway, I'm here. I'll take the right flank, Billie."
"Do you think there's a chance, Jim?" The voice of Prince shook with
emotion. It was the first sign of distress he had given.
Clanton reflected just a moment before he answered. "I think there's just
a chance. She saved our lives once, Billie. If she's alive we'll find
her, you an' me."
"By God, yes." Prince turned away. He could not talk about it without
breaking down.
In the stress of a great shock Billie had made a vital discovery. The
most important thing that would ever come to him in life was to find Lee
Snaith alive. How blind he had been! He could see her now in imagination,
as in reality he had seen her a hundred times, moving in the sun-pour
with elastic tread, full-throated and deep-chested, athrob with life in
every generous vein. How passionately she had loved things brave and
true! How anger had flamed up in her like fire among tow at meanness and
hypocrisy. Surely all the beauty of her person, the fineness of her
character, could not be blotted out so wantonly. If there was any economy
in his world God would never permit waste like that.
He wanted her. His soul cried out for her. and stormily he prayed that he
might find her alive and well, that the chance might still be given him
to tell her how much he loved her.
Sometimes he covered small distances where the flow structure was
comparatively smooth, broken only by minor irregularities. Again he came
to abrupt pits, deep caverns, tumbled heaps of broken slabs, or jagged
chunks of lava twisted into strange shapes. No doubt the volcanic flow
had hardened to a crust on top, cracked, and sunk into the furnace below.
This process must have gone on indefinitely.
He crept from slab to slab, pulled himself across chasms, worked slowly
forward in the darkness. At intervals he fired and listened for an
answer. Occasionally there drifted to him the sound of a shot from one of
the other searchers. As the hours passed and brought to him no signal
that the girl had been found, his hopes ebbed. It was very unlikely that
she could have wandered so far into the bad lands as this.
He shuddered to think of her alone in this vast tomb of death. Suppose
she were here and they never found her. Suppose she were asleep when he
passed, worn out by terror and exhaustion. His voice grew hoarse from
shouting. Sometimes, when the thought of her fate would become an agony
to him, he could hardly keep his shout from rising to a scream.
Billie struck a match and looked at his watch. It was five minutes past
three. A faint gray was beginning to sift into the sky. He had been
nearly seven hours in the Mal-Pais. Out in God's country the world would
soon be shaking sleep from its eyes. In this death zone there was neither
waking nor sleeping. "Frozen hell," Clanton had called it. Prince
shuddered.
The flare of the match had showed him that he was standing close to the
edge of a fissure. In the darkness he could not see to the bottom of it.
A faint breath of a whimper floated to him. He grew rigid, every nerve
taut. He dared not let himself believe it could be real. Of course he was
imagining sounds. Presently, no doubt, he would hear voices. In this
devil's caldron a man could not stay quite sane.
Again, as if from below his feet, was lifted a strangled, little sob.
"Lee!" he called huskily with what was left of his voice.
Something in the cavern moved. By means of outcropping spars of rock he
lowered himself swiftly.
The darkness was Stygian. He struck another match.
From the gloom beyond the space lit by the small flame came the rustle of
something stirring. The match burned out. He lit another and groped
forward. His foot struck an impediment.
He looked down into the startled eyes and white face of Lee Snaith.